A numerical approach to the rotational stiffness of stake welds

Paper in proceeding, 2017

Stake welds of two parallel plates enable the production of several different types of all-steel sandwich panels. One example is laser-welded corrugated core all-steel sandwich panels. The normal stresses close to the welds and in the welds of corrugated core steel sandwich panels with dual weld lines through subjected to shear has been shown to be affected by the rotational stiffness of the weld region. This paper presents an approximate closed-form solution for the weld region rotational stiffness as a function of the geometric properties. The solution is based on linear and non-linear regression analysis using the results of 4000 finite element analyses (FEA). All FEA are executed with linear constitutive relations. The presented solution is shown to have a high accuracy within the investigated range. The study ranges over plate thicknesses between 4 and 16mm, gap between the plates between 0.1 and 1.0mm and weld widths from 1 to 4mm. It was shown that the maximum possible error of 7% between the closed-form solution and FEA within the investigated range has a negligible effect on the transverse shear stiffness of corrugated core steel sandwich panels.