The effect of multiaxiality on the evaluation of weldment strength reduction factors in high-temperature creep

The conventional way to define the weldment creep strength reduction factor is usually based on uniaxial creep data of weld metals and parent metals. In order to take the multiaxial effect into consideration, this paper has defined a structural transfer function which can be evaluated from general creep stress analysis. An analytical model is then proposed in the light of the function. Two numerical examples of typical weld properties show that the transfer function has a load-independent feature, which allows one to obtain multiaxial stress components in a weldment through minimal computation effort. Fairly good estimation of the stress level in the weld metal is achieved. On the basis of the present semi-analytical procedure, the weldment creep strength reduction factors are evaluated. For a 0.5Cr0.5Mo0.25V butt-welded tube under internal pressure, which has a higher weld metal creep-rupture strength, and lower weld metal creep strain rate, the reduction factors range from 0.9 to 0.95. For the AISI 316 butt-welded tube of cold-worked parent metal and creep soft weld metal, lower strength reduction factors are found, but they may still be nonconservative due to stress enhancement in the heat-affected zone.