Distributions of residual stresses in stiffened plates with one and two stiffeners

This study was undertaken for a better understanding of the residual stress distributions associated with welds typically found in ship hulls. Specimens that represent small sections of an actual ship hull were built and tested using the neutron diffraction method at the Canadian Neutron Beam Centre in the Chalk River Laboratories. The specimens comprised 9.5 mm thick steel plates stiffened by L127 × 76 × 9.5 steel angles. This paper presents one- and three-dimensional distributions of all three components of residual stress created from the production of the steel plate and from the welding of one and two stiffeners onto the parent steel plate. Subsequently, the longitudinal stress in the transverse direction of the stiffened plate specimens was compared with the Faulkner model. It was found that the Faulkner model is able to predict the general distributions of this stress; however, it was unable to predict the stress values correctly.