Distribution of Welding Residual Stresses in Laser Welds with the Nail-head shape

During the laser welding, weldments are suddenly heated and cooled by laser beam of high density energy. This phenomenon gives an occasion to complex welding residual stresses, which have a great influence on structural instability, in laser welds. However, relevant researches on this field are not sufficient until now and residual stress measurements have experimental and practical limitations. From these reasons, a numerical simulation may be attractive in order to solve the residual stress problem. For clarifying the distribution of heat and welding residual stresses in laser welds with the nail-head shape, authors conduct the finite element analysis (two-dimensional unstationary heat conduction & thermal elastic and plastic analysis). From the results, we can confirm the stress concentration occurs at the place of melting line shape changed in laser welds with the nail-head shape.