Professor Hongbiao Dong from the University of Leicester and Shuwen Wen, Principal Scientist at Tata Steel, describe their collaboration using HPC to model the welding process. For more information, please see http://hpc-midlands.ac.uk

1. HPC Midlands Launch Event
March 20, 2013
Leicester – Tata Steel collaboration
Hongbiao Dong1, Shuwen Wen2
1. University of Leicester
2. Tata Steel

2. Tata Steel: a multinational steel company, subsidiary of Tata
 Fortune 500 company
 Top 10 global steelmaker: production
capacity 28 Mt/a
 Manufacturing operations
in 26 countries
 Commercial presence in Jamshedpur
over 50 countries India
 80 000 employees
 Listed in Mumbai
Port Talbot
UK
Ijmuiden
The Netherlands 2

3. Locations Tata Steel Group RD&T
TTC
Jamshedpur
India R&D
STC IJTC
AEG
TTC: Teesside Technology Centre
STC: Swinden Technology Centre (Rotherham) UK total 350 people
AEG: Automotive Engineering Group (Coventry)
IJmuiden 445 people
IJTC: IJmuiden Technology Centre
India total 450 people
3

4. Tata Steel R, D&T Swinden Technology Centre (STC)
• Processes, Products and Applications
• Departments in:
• Iron making (TTC & IJTC)
• Steel making & continuous casting
• Steel Metallurgy
• Iron making
• Long Product Rolling
• Rolling Metal Strip
• Industrial & Construction
• Environment
Rotherham S60 3AR, UK 4

5. 5

6. Top 200 universities worldwide*
Department of Engineering

7. Mechanics of Materials Group at Leicester
• At the interface between Mechanical Engineering and Materials Engineering.
• Research by integrating experimental and computational technologies.
• Our computational work benefits from ALICE and East Midlands HPC – ALICE: a
new High Performance Computing (HPC) cluster at Leicester

8. Mechanics of Materials Group at Leicester
• At the interface between Mechanical Engineering and Materials Engineering.
• Research by integrating experimental and computational technologies.
• Our computational work benefits from ALICE and East Midlands HPC – ALICE: a
new High Performance Computing (HPC) cluster at Leicester
• Multi-scale, Multi-physics Materials Process Modelling
• Casting, Welding, Heat Treatment
• Microstructure Evolution during Processing and In-use of High Temperature
Materials

9. What Can Materials Process Modelling Do ?
 To visualize process routes
 What are the physical processes occurring during processing
(casting, welding, heat treatment and coating) ?
 What are the optimum dimensions and geometry of components with
regard to processing?
 Can numerical modelling be used to answer the above questions?
 Can we move away from empirical choices of casting, welding
/HT/coating processes to one which is designed and optimised?
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10. Multi-scale Multi-physical Nature of Materials Processing
cathode (-)
radiation
filler wire (electrode) crystal growth,
(b) element segregation
Plasma gas heat flux
free surface solute diffusion
drag arc pressure
latent heat
300 m
anode (+) marangoni
grain boundary
1nm
segregation
JB stress
melting/solidification heat conduction elastic/plastic-
interface deformation
weld pool
workpiece A workpiece B 3nm intermetallic
(c) structure defects
(a)
Energetics and
kinetics of
interface, bonding
Crystal A Crystal B
/Melt strength10
(d)

11. scale (time/length) models
quantum
(10-12s / 10-10 to 10-9m)
ab-initio
quantum mechanical
thermodynamic data;
Models
force fields, including H-alloy interaction;
atomic arrangement at interfaces
interfacial properties
Inter-atomic potentials
classical molecular diffusion of hydrogen,
(10-7s / 10-9 to 10- dynamics structural
cohesive zone model
8m) integrity,
interface structure
thermodynamic properties of chemistry;
solid-liquid & solid-solid crystal orientation; stress hot cracking
interfaces microstructure & +
chemistry, hydrogen
nano-micro phase field crystal thermodynamics of
phase field embrittlement
(10-3s / 10-9 to 10-3m) fracture/ defect growth,
residual stress,
dendrite kinetics; latent heat; enthalpy change; grain
solidification interface; structure; local chemistry; thermal
microscopic morphology field and local gradients
grain structure Computational
grain
model alloy-specific
thermo-dynamics
(10-3 to 101s / 10-4 to 10- thermodynamics &
2m) kinetics
boundary conditions;
solidification fronts; mushy chemistry; flow pattern; thermal field
zone permeability
macro computational fluid dynamics
(102s / 10-3 to 10-1m) finite element analysis

12. Macro-scale: In-situ Observation of Internal Flow in Weld Pool
Lincoln
remotely
Powertec 231C
welding
controlled metal
machine active gas
10mm thickness (MAG)
steel plate welding
head
Beam
Source Detector
Return current
Insulating plate
Beamline sample stage
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13. Lincoln
Powertec 231C
welding
machine
10mm thickness
steel plate welding
head
Beam
Source Detector
Return current
Insulating plate
Beamline sample stage
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14. we
ma
10mm thickness
single streamlines of flow steel plate welding
head
electrode Beam
(a) advancing Source Det
melt pool
Return current
flow trace Insulating plate
over 0.1 s Beamline sample stage
solidified
joint
(a) over 50 mini
seconds
(b) electrode
advancing (b) over 120 mini
melt pool seconds
(X-ray radiography)
flow trace
over 0.23 s solidified
joint
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15. Modelling work to analyse the internal flow
• The quantitative analysis of the fluid flow has been proven difficult,
although progress has been made in analysing the velocity data.
• This is because different forces (plasma and arc pressure, Marangoni
and Lorentz forces) act on fluid dynamics in weld pool.
With Lorentz force driven flow (S=0%) Without Lorentz force driven flow (S=0%)
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16. 16

17. Solid-liquid interface fluctuation
System: Pure Fe (100)[010] plane
Atoms: 43,200
System size: 17.545 1.7545 17.545 nm
Time: 1ns, dt=5fs

18. Potential Impact
• Being able to predict and control properties using HPC during
welding, and hence to produce welds with radically improved properties
will certainly help improve the productivity of pipeline products and the
integrity of the constructed gas and oil pipelines by using new alloys in
conjunction with advanced technologies.
• The technique has been taking forward by industry to develop
advanced welding technology for new welded pipelines, the
construction time is usually 2 to 3 years in an European leading steel-
making industry, during which welding development is a major issue.
• The overall cost involved in the development is several million Euros.
When these pipeline products are in use, the cost for the construction
of a pipeline is often up to several billion Euros and the integrity of the
pipeline has huge implications for the local energy supply and hence
economic prosperity.
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19. With the advances in HPC & processing modelling,
Changes can be made in manufacturing?

20. Acknowledgement
EPSRC, the European Commission, the Royal Society ,
Tata Steel, Rolls-Royce, TWI,
for research funding
Colleagues and PhD students at University of Leicester,
Loughborough University for providing information in
this presentation