Ductile cracking simulation procedure for welded joints under monotonic tension

A large number of welded steel moment-resisting framed (SMRF) structures failed due to brittle fracture induced by ductile fracture at beam-to-column connections during 1994 Northridge earthquake and 1995 Kobe (Hyogoken-Nanbu) earthquake. Extensive research efforts have been devoted to clarifying the mechanism of the observed failures and corresponding countermeasures to ensure more ductile design of welded SMRF structures, while limited research on the failure analysis of the ductile cracking was conducted due to lack of computational capacity and proper theoretical models. As the first step to solve this complicated problem, this paper aims to establish a straightforward procedure to simulate ductile cracking of welded joints under monotonic tension. There are two difficulties in achieving the aim of this study, including measurement of true stress-true strain data and ductile fracture parameters of different subzones in a welded joint, such as weld deposit, heat affected zone and the boundary between the two. Butt joints are employed in this study for their simple configuration. Both experimental and numerical studies on two types of butt joints are conducted. The validity of the proposed procedure is proved by comparison between the experimental and numerical results.