Experimental and Numerical Study of Crack Initiation Critical Load in Heat Affected Zone of Welded Structural Steel

In this paper, a numerical model for studying fracturebehavior of cracked welded plate was proposed. For thispurpose, Heat Affected Zone (HAZ) is assumed to be afunctionally graded medium. Numerical simulations wereused to develop a model of fracture in two dimensions usingcommercial finite element package ABAQUS. Furthermore,experimental tests were carried out. To model the materialproperties, after metallography of specimens and identifyingthe HAZ, micro hardness test was conducted. Since thematerial properties, which were Young s modulus, fracturetoughness, and poison ratio, were given for the parent metaland also the welded metal, an interpolation regardinghardness variation was used to predict properties in HAZ.Crack initiation condition within HAZ of V-welded jointswas studied and the results were presented.