Finite element analysis of temperature field, microstructure and residual stress in multi-pass butt-welded 2.25Cr–1Mo steel pipes

An attempt was made to develop a thermal–metallurgical–mechanical computational procedure based on ABAQUS code to simulate welding temperature field, microstructure and residual stress in multi-pass butt-welded 2.25Cr–1Mo steel pipes. In the present work, our emphasis was to predict welding residual stress considering the influence of solid-state phase transformation. In the proposed computational procedure, the Johnson–Mehl–Avrami–Kolmogorov equation was used to track the austenite–bainite transformation, and the Koistinen–Marburger relationship was employed to describe austenite–martensite change. Effects of volumetric change and yield strength change due to solid-state phase transformation on welding residual stress were investigated. The simulation results show that both volumetric change and yield strength change have significant effects on welding residual stress in 2.25Cr–1Mo steel pipes. The simulation results were compared with the experimental measurements, and the effectiveness of the developed computational producer was confirmed.