With the development of weld modeling technology and high performance computation, a web-based analysis tool (http://eweldpredictor.ewi.org/) was developed to predict temperature, microstructure, hardness, residual stress and distortion for arc welding processes. This online tool provides an engineer with easy access to advanced modeling tools over the internet to quickly explore various welding scenarios for process optimizations. By providing welding parameters, defining a weld joint, giving geometry dimensions, and specifying a material, the simulation is conducted automatically at a remotely located super computer.  After calculation, a PDF report documenting the analysis results is produced for review.
This paper reveals the underlying thermal, microstructure, and mechanical model implemented in the online modeling tool and discusses several applications of the online modeling tool.  The first application is to understand the effect of heat input on the resulting microstructure, residual stresses and distortion for a U-groove Ti64 butt joint.  Results show that a larger heat input is likely to result in higher heat build-up, larger residual stresses and larger distortion.  The second application is to calculate the cooling rates for a narrow groove X-100 steel weld.  The results show that increase of preheating temperature reduces the cooling rate so that the amount of martensite and hardness in the heat-affected zone are reduced. The third application is to minimize the welding-induced distortion of aluminum alloy 6061 lap-joint.
 The new development of predicting microstructure, weld residual stress, and distortion for arc welding processes will provide benefit to welding-related industries. It will help design engineers to better design welded structures and help manufacturing engineers to optimize welding processes.