Prediction of steel plate deformation due to triangle heating using the inherent strain method

In a shipyard, line heating and triangle heating are two major processes carried out by skilled workers to form curved plates in various shapes under various heating conditions. There have been many studies on line heating, but triangle heating has rarely been studied owing to its complicated heating process with irregular multiheating paths and highly concentrated heat input. Triangle heating is the most labor-intensive job. Hence, it is essential for most shipyards to study the automation, as well as the improvement, of the triangle heating process in order to increase hull-forming productivity. In this study, a pioneering attempt to simulate triangle heating was made. A circular disk-spring model is proposed as an analysis model for the elastoplastic procedure of triangle heating, and the inherent strain method is also used to analyze the deformation of plates. The results of the simulation were compared with those of experiments and showed good agreement. It is shown that the present approach and the model used in this study are effective and efficient for simulating triangle heating for the steel plate forming process in shipbuilding.