Understanding how to determine Weld Stresses from an FEA model using ANSYS Workbench

[Ansbigian]

I'm trying to understand how to analyze welds using a shell element model in ANSYS Workbench. I seem to recall that one has to extract reactions at the joint and place them into a spreadsheet where one can calculate weld stresses and compare them to the allowable strength. The only problem is I've forgotten how to do it. Does anyone have an example using ANSYS Workbench on the procedure? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[FEA way]

I don’t use Ansys but the general rules for weld stress analysis with FEA are the same no matter which software is used so I will give you some advice. Typical approach is to first read stress components at specific location close to the weld (depends on the utilized method or code). Be careful when doing this for shell elements, they have different convention for stress components than solids. Then these stresses are usually converted using formulas from specific code so that you can compare them with allowable values.

 

[Ansbigian]

Thanks for your quick response. I appreciate it.