Prediction of the deflection and residual stress in controlled cooling of hot-rolled steel beams including load and arbitrary support: Part II. Experimental validation and application

The generalised plane strain FE analysis for computational prediction of the deflection and residual stress in arbitrarily supported, hot-rolled beams cooled on the runout table, described in Part I, is validated by comparing values of residual stress in force-cooled U-beams, rails and rods, predicted by this analysis with those predicted by full 3D FE analysis using the commercial package LUSAS. Predicted values of residual stress are found to agree with values obtained by the blind hole-drilling method to within the accuracy of the latter method. It is concluded that the analysis presented provides a computationally highly economical technique for predicting the residual stress (and deflection) of such beams within acceptable accuracy.