Numerical investigation of effects of nickel-base alloy overlay size on the welding residual stresses in an austenite stainless steel narrow-gap girth weld

Based on the experimental measurement of the residual stress in the nickel-based alloy overlaid stainless-steel narrow-gap girth weld, an axisymmetric finite element (FE) model was established to simulate the residual stress in the girth weld to verify the model. Then a large number of numerical simulations were carried out with the verified FE model to study the effects of the size (height and length) of the nickel-based alloy weld overlay on the residual stress in the girth weld. The optimal overlay sizes to achieve sufficient depth of the compressive stress were investigated. The results show that as the overlay height increases, the hoop compressive stress depth from the inner wall at the weld centerline increases, while the range of the axial compressive stress distribution decreases. The hoop and axial compressive stress depths at the weld centerline increase as the overlay width increases, while the depth of the hoop compressive stress remains unchanged when the overlay width reaches a critical value. The effect of the overlay height on the hoop stress is greater than that of the overlay width, and it is more difficult to mitigate the axial stress by increasing the width of the overlay layer with a large overlay height. For the narrow-gap 304 stainless-steel pipe girth weld with a size of o273 mm x 28 mm, the optimum nickel based alloy overlay is 14 mm in height and 210 mm in width, which can cause both hoop and axial stresses at the inner wall to be compressive, and the hoop compressive stress depth from the inner wall reaches 88 % of the pipe wall thickness and axial compressive stress depth reaches 78 % of the wall thickness.