Weld Settings

Table of contents

• About
• Usage
  • Import Weld Settings
• General Settings
• Weld Code Editor
  • Material grade
  • Weld Section parameters
  • Design Resistance parameters
• FAT Class Editor

About

General preference for welds are managed by the “Weld Settings” object. This is useful for turning the plotting of “Weld Id number” on/off or to edit the default values. The object is also used for editing or adding weld codes. The object is optional and can be deleted from the model.

Usage

Click “Weld Settings” to add the Weld Settings object to the model tree.

Existing data in the preference file “weldStrengthPref.py” and “weldFatiguePref.py” is used when the settings is added.

• To Import Weld Settings from a selected previous version right-click and select “Import Weld Settings”.
• To revert the Weld Settings right-click and select “Reset Weld Settings”.
• To update (and overwrite) the global preference files “weldStrengthPref.py” and “weldFatiguePref.py” right-click and select “Save Weld Settings”.
  A pop-up question “Overwrite existing Weld Setting defaults?” prompts the user to confirm or cancel the save.
  (A backup copy of the app default values are saved in the files “weldStrengthPrefDefault.py” and “weldFatiguePrefDefault.py”.)

The Weld Codes and FAT Class are not modified by the “Save Weld Settings”.
They have separate save buttons, see the sections below.

Import Weld Settings

When updating/migrating from a previous version of Weld Toolkit use the “Import Weld Settings” to browse for the folder with the preference files.

The General Settings from the source folder (weldStrengthPref.py, weldFatiguePref.py) are loaded to the current Weld Settings object so the changes can be inspected before using the “Save Weld Settings”.

The import of Materials, Weld Code and FAT Class will import the data from corresponding files (Materials.json, weldCodes.json, fatClassDict.json) and add only if a name is missing, i.e. not over-writing existing names.

A pop-up window will display all the identified imports with the option to confirm (OK) or abort (Cancel) the import.
The ACT Log File will list the name of all imported items.

If you have made edits of the existing codes, e.g. “Eurocode 3”, in previous version you have to apply the changes using the Weld Code Editor or in a text editor on the corresponding files.

General Settings

The General Settings defines the default values for the different features. You may always edit the properties on the individual load/result object when using them.

(i) Store Results At

If the Analysis Setting/Output Controls is “Store Results At = All Time Points” and the result file contains many sub steps this setting can limit post processing to “Last Time Point” for each load step to speed up post processing time in the following cases:

• Weld Strength results when using “By = Maximum Over Time” or if “Calculate Time History = Yes”.
• Weld Fatigue results when using “Load Type = Load Scanning”.

If the Analysis Setting/Output Controls is “Store Results At = Last Time Point” then this setting does not influence the post processing time.
It is possible to change the property back to “All Available Time Points” to post process at a specific sub step or time point within a load step without clearing the solution given that the solution was solved with “All Time Points”.

(ii) Post processing MAPDL license

Default,Mechanical Pro,Mechanical Premium,Mechanical Enterprise,Mechanical Enterprise PrepPost,Mechanical Enterprise Solver

(iii) Weld Force Extraction

Weld Strength force extraction can now use Formulation = “MPC” for bonded contacts if Weld Force Extraction = “Underlying Element”. See Bonded contact vs. multi-body for more information.

(iv) Edit Weld Code

When selecting “New” an empty set of properties are displayed.
When selecting an existing code the corresponding properties are loaded.

Weld Code Editor

The Weld Code Editor is used to modify an existing code or to create a new. E.g. add more material grades or adjust an evaluation criteria.

The interface loads data from the file “weldStrengthPref.py”. New and modified codes are saved in a separate file, “WeldStrength.json” in the app installation folder. This file is loaded and replaces the app original data when post processing.

To revert to the app original data the file “WeldStrength.json” can be deleted. When migrating to a new version of Weld Toolkit the files can be copied to the new app installation folder.

(i) New Code Name

If using the same name the code is updated.
If naming “delete”, “del”, “clear” or “remove” the selected code is deleted.

Material grade

The material tabular editor loads the available Material Grades from the selected code.
The following restrictions apply:

• Fy >= 0 Default = 0.0 (Optional)
• Fu > 0
• alfaw > 0 Default = 0.6
• betaw > 0 Default = 1.0
• gammaM2 > 0 Default = 1.0
• gammaL >= 0 Default = 0.0 (Optional)
  If gammaL > 0 it sets the result Scale Factor Value.

Weld Section parameters

Design Resistance parameters

FAT Class Editor

The FAT Class Editor is used to modify or add new FAT class S-N data.

The interface loads data from the file “weldFatiguePref.py”. The modified data is saved in a separate file, “fatClassDict.json”, in the app installation folder. This file is loaded and replaces the app original data when postprocessing.

To revert to the app original data the file “fatClassDict.json” can be deleted. When migrating to a new version of Weld Toolkit the file can be copied to the new app installation folder.

The following restrictions apply:

• FAT > 0
• 0 <= N0 < Nfat < Nc < Ncutoff If N0 = 0 then m0 is ignored.
• 0 < m0, 0 < m1, 0 < m2