Study of residual stresses and strains field during arc welding with trailing heat sink on titanium alloy sheet

Arc welding process is widely used in such as aerospace, shipyard and others, the stress and distortion induced by arc process is high compared with other fusion welding process such as LBW or EBW processes. This paper presents the numerically predicted results of study aimed at establishing temperature distribution, distortion and residual stress field developed during the conventional welding process and after enhancing with trailing heat sink applied in titanium alloy sheet. A numerical analysis of thermo-mechanical process using FEM by means ANSYS code was carried out, the analysis result showed that this technique strongly improved the welding process by mean minimizing the residual stress and distortion specially when small thickness was applied, it is found that the distance between the welding arc and the cooling one is important factor.