Numerical study on the effect of welding and heating treatments on strength of high strength steel column

High strength steel box columns are usually fabricated from steel slab by applying welding. The welding process can introduce residual stresses and geometric imperfections into the columns and influence the column strength. In this study, a numerical investigation on the behavior of high strength steel thin-walled box columns under the compression force was carried out. The welding processes were firstly simulated with commercial package ABAQUS in this study to find out the residual stress distributions in high strength steel box column. After that, the column behaviors under the compression were modelled with predefined field from the previous step. The effect of the welding process (including flux-core arc welding and submerged arc welding), heating treatment (including preheating and post-weld heat treatment) and geometrical imperfection on the residual stress field and box column strength was investigated and discussed.