Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Residual Stress Stiffening Influence on Dynamic Response of Welded Structures

Abstract This paper presents the study of welding residual stress-stiffening effect on the dynamic responses and vibrational parameters of welded aluminum parts through an experimental modal analysis and Center Hole Drilling (CHD) residual stress measurement methods. Having a great corrosion resistance, AA5056 was utilized in this research that has been used in aircraft and ship structures; making the welding assesment of crucial. Natural frequencies and damping factors of several specimens are compared before and after the welding along with verification of experimental modal analysis integrity using Euler-Bernoulli relations. Finite element modeling of welding, cutting and modal/stress analysis of samples are also done to compare the experimental results. The results obtained from the precise modal analysis of all samples show that welding made the structure harder leading to 2% increase in natural frequencies and changing damping factors of different mode shapes. Cutting also reduced the level of residual stresses up to 34%. A good agreement is shown between the modal analysis and the experimental results. The technique used in the experiment and finite element simulation along with modeling assumptions are beneficial to other applications where model updating is required or a prediction of residual stress stiffening influence on modal responses is important.