Simulation of Ball-rod Hardening of a Butt Welded Joint of Transport Bearing Structures

Abstract The article considers the problem of strengthening of a steel plate in the weld zone by ball-rod hardener. Butt-welded joints are widespread in engineering and construction, and ensuring their quality is one of the most important tasks of increasing the reliability of steel structures. A welded joint is a substantially heterogeneous area in which mechanical characteristics vary along the length of the joint. In the weld zone, there is an increase in strength and a decrease in ductility. In the heat-affected zone (HAZ) there is a zone of reduced strength, which should be strengthened during the manufacturing process by the method of indentation of a spherical indenter. The simulation of this problem was carried out in an ANSYS environment in a flat, static formulation by minimizing the total potential energy. The heterogeneity of the material was modeled by layer-by-layer elastic-plastic properties with bilinear isotropic hardening. The results in the form of stress, strain, and displacement fields are obtained. An analysis of the Mises equivalent stress fields and the tangential stress fields made it possible to evaluate the degree of HAZ hardening and to predict the mechanical characteristics after ball-hardening.