• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.127-132
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• 2002

Recent deepwater offshore structures in Gulf of Mexico utilize butt welded tubular joints. Application of welded tubular joint includes tendons, production risers, and steel catenary risers. Fatigue life assessment of these joints becomes more critical because the structures to which they are attached are allowed to undergo cyclic and sometimes large displacements around an anchored position. Estimating the fatigue behavior of these tubular members in the design stage is generally conducted by using S-N curves specified in the codes and standards. Applying the stress concentration factor of the welded structure to S-N approach often results in very conservative assessment because the stress field acting on the tubular has a non-uniform distribution through the thickness. Fracture mechanics and fitness for service (FFS) technology have been applied in the design of the catenary risers. This technology enables the engineer to establish proper requirements on weld quality and inspection acceptance criteria to assure satisfactory structural integrity during its design life. It also provides guidance on proper design curves to be used and a methodology for accounting for the effects of non-uniform stress distribution through the wall thickness. An attempt was made to develop set of S-N curves based on fracture mechanics approach by considering non-uniform stress distribution and a threshold stress intensity factor. Series of S-N curves generated from this approach were compared to the existing S-N curves. For flat plate butt joint, the S-N curve generated from fracture mechanics matches with the IIW class 100 curve when initial crack depth was 0.5 mm (0.02"). Similar comparison with API X′ was made for tubular joint.. These initial crack depths are larger than the limits of inspection by current Non-destructive examination (NDE) means, such as Automatic Ultrasonic Inspection (AUT). Thus a safe approach can be taken by specifying acceptance criteria that are close to limits of sizing capability of the selected NDE method. The comparison illustrates conservatism built into the S-N design curve.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.1560-1565
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• 2005

Laser beam welding is increasingly being used in welding of structural steels. The laser welding process is one of the most advanced manufacturing technologies owing to its high speed and deep penetration. The thermal cycles associated with laser welding are generally much faster than those involved in conventional arc welding processes, leading to a rather small weld zone. Experiments are performed for 304 stainless steel plates changing several process parameters such as laser power, welding speed, shielding gas flow rate, presence of surface pollution, with fixed or variable gap and misalignment between the similar and dissimilar plates, etc. The following conclusions can be drawn that laser power and welding speed have a pronounced effect on size and shape of the fusion zone. Increase in welding speed resulted in an increase in weld depth/ aspect ratio and hence a decrease in the fusion zone size. The penetration depth increased with the increase in laser power.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.50-56
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• 2015

In general, discontinuity of metallurgical and structural points of weld zone could decline the fatigue strength. For the lightweight trend, the AHSS application in automotive chassis is in-progress. However, there are few research reports on AHSS welds fatigue strength in especially automotive chassis parts. Therefore, in this study, we evaluated the effects of the factors affecting the AHSS welding fatigue strength. As the result, the stress concentration of weld bead is the most important factor for welding fatigue strength. For the enhancement of welding fatigue strength, we focused on reducing the stress concentration of the welding beads. So, we applied and proved the plasma welding process and GTAW (Gas Tungsten Arc Welding) dressing method. It was verified by uniaxial fatigue specimen, fatigue performance increased from 40 to 60% by applying TIG dressing method compared to the conventional GMAW (Gas Metal Arc Welding). These results could be recommended the enhancement of fatigue performance of AHSS.

• International Journal of Ocean System Engineering
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.160-169
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• 2012

Flux Cored Arc Welding (FCAW) is a common practice to join thick plates such as the structural members of large scale offshore structures and very large container ships. The objective of this study was to investigate the mechanical properties and variability of the fatigue crack initiation life in the flux cored arc welded API 2W Gr.50 steel joints typically applied to offshore structures with a focus on the effect of the materials in fatigue crack growth life from the notch root of a compact tension specimen. Offshore structural steel (API 2W Gr.50) plates (60-mm thick) were used to fabricate multi-path flux core arc welded butt welded joints to clearly consider fatigue fractures at the weld zone from the notch. Fatigue tests were performed under a constant amplitude cyclic loading of R = 0.4. The mean fatigue crack initiation life of the HAZ specimen was the highest among the base metal (BM), weld metal (WM), and heat affected zone (HAZ). In addition, the coefficient of variation was the highest in the WMl specimen. The variability of the short fatigue crack growth rates from the notch tips in the WM and HAZ specimens was higher than in BM.

• Laser Solutions
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.11-18
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• 1999

This paper describes the weldability of carbon steel and stainless steel using 5㎾ $CO_2$ laser system with nearly multi-mode beam and a parabolic focusing mirror. In the laser welding of steels, major welding parameters are focal point, travel speed, beam power, shield gas and gap tolerance, etc.. Two kinds of gases(Ar, He) were used as a assist gas and supplied through the external nozzle. It is very important for optimum condition to remove plasma plume which absorbs laser beam and to obtain deep penetration and sound weld bead. Bead-on-plate welding tests were carried out for the experiments. Penetration data were obtained with various welding parameters and the effects of welding parameters were discussed. Butt welding tests were performed with various conditions. Only the optimum laser parameters assured good weld quality As a result of this study, We achieve the fundamental weldabilities using a high power $CO_2$ laser for carbon steel and stainless steel.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.85-91
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• 2003

Narrow gap welding has many advantages over conventional V-grooved butt welding such as high productivity, small deformation and improved mechanical property of joints. With narrower groove gap, less arc heat input is expected will all the other advantages of narrow gap welding. The main defects of narrow gap welding include the lack of root fusion, convex bead surface and irregular surface, all of which have negative effects on the next welding pass. This paper suggests an up-and-down torch oscillation for ultra narrow gap welding with gap size of 5mm and investigates the proper welding conditions to fulfill the reliable and high welding quality. First, GMA welding model was suggested for ultra narrow gap welding system with Halmoy's model referenced for wire melting modeling. And the arc length in ultra narrow gap was defined. Secondly, based on the experimental results of up-and-down torch oscillation welding, phase shift of current and wire extension length were simulated for varying oscillation frequency to show that weld the bead shape in ultra narrow gap welding can be predicted. As the result, it was confirmed that reliable weld quality in ultra narrow gap welding can be achieved with up-and-down torch oscillation above 15Hz due to its ability to provide uniform heat input along the sidewall of gap.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers
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• v.10 no.5
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• pp.625-634
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• 1986

The strain distribution on a welded aluminum alloy transition joint produced by a static tensile load has been measured using a moire method combined with photoelastic coating method. The test specimens were made of aluminum alloy 6061-T6 and 2014-T6 butt welded with ER-4043 filler metal, and were post welded heat treated (solid solution heat treatment 502.deg. C 70min.) and precipitated (artificial aging 171.deg. C 600min.) to cause an abrupt change of mechanical properties between the base metals and weld metal. The photoelastic epoxy rubber was cemented on the specimen grating which had been reproduced on the specimen surface by using an electropolishing. The measurements were compared with strains computed by Finite Element Analysis. The following results were abtained. (1) The maximum strain were distributed along the center line in the transverse directiion of the weld metal. (2) The strain gradient along the fusion line increased approaching the V-groove tip and the maximum value was observed at a quarter of width from the V-groove tip. (3) The moire method combined with photoelastic coating was proved very useful for real time strain measurement in the welded aluminum alloy transition joint.

• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.144-146
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• 2005

Dual electromagnetic sensor is used for sensing the weld line. The sensor consists of excitation and two sensing coil wound over the ferro-magnetic core. By using the dual sensor, the effect of noise is minimized. It is based on the generation of eddy currents in the welding plate by passing current through the excitation coil. The sensor can be used to track the butt joints having no gap between them, where a vision based sensor fails to track. Sensor sensitivity depends on the number of coil turns, frequency of excitation, distance of a sensor from the work piece, diameter of core, etc. The whole system consists of a sensor, a signal processing board, a motion controller and a personnel computer (PC). The raw sensor signal is processed using the signal processing board. It consists of amplification, rectification, filtering, averaging, offset adjustment, etc. Based on sensor data, the motion controller adjusts the position of a welding torch.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.54-58
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• 2008

Laser welding with AZ61 filler wire was carried out to improve formability though reduction of porosity and formation of under fill bead. Optimum welding condition and mechanical properties of butt joint for $400{\times}500{\times}1.3mm$ magnesium sheets were studied. Optimal welding conditions of laser power, welding speed, and defocusing length are 1000W, 3m/min, and 2mm, respectively. Results of tensile test indicated that both tensile strength and elongation of specimens welded with filler wire were improved at room temperature because of reduction of porosity and under-filled bead formation in addition to the precipitation hardening and microstructure refinement by Al-Mn and Mg-Al-Zn precipitates. At elevated temperature of $200{\sim}350^{\circ}C$, fracture location of tensile specimen was shifted from weld metal to base metal, indicating less softening of weld metal than base metal.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.67-72
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• 2016

Aluminum alloy is one of light weight material and it is used to make LNG tank and ship. However, in order to weld aluminum alloy high density heat source is needed. In this paper, I-butt welding of Al 5083 with 6mm thickness using Plasma-MIG welding was carried out. The experiment was performed to investigate the influence of plasma-MIG welding parameters such as plasma current, wire feeding rate, MIG-welding voltage and welding speed on the tensile strength of weld. In addition we suggested 3 strength estimation models which are second order polynomial regression model, multiple nonlinear regression model and neural network model. The estimation performance of 3 models was evaluated in terms of average error rate (AER) and their values were 0.125, 0.238, and 0.021 respectively. Neural network model which has training concept and reflects non -linearity was best estimation performance.