J. Mater. Sci. Technol., 2010, 26(10), 951-956.

Eect of Welding Technologies on Decreasing Welding

Residual Stress of Francis Turbine Runner

Shude Ji1) , Liguo Zhang1) , Xuesong Liu2) and Jianguo Yang2)

1) School of Aerospace Engineering, Shenyang Aerospace University, Shenyang 110034, China
2) State Key laboratory of Advanced Welding Production Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001,
China
[Manuscript received November 23, 2009, in revised form January 17, 2010]

On basis of the subsection welding and the local heating s reasonable technological parameters obtained by
plane experiment, the welding residual stress eld of some Francis turbine runner is regulated and controlled.
For the experimental plane with a thickness of 16 mm, the eect of subsection welding on decreasing welding
residual stress of the prior welding section is obvious when the distance is less than 50 mm away from the end
of latter welding section. For the local heating, the best position, where the eect on decreasing the welding
residual stress of plane is best, is 60 mm or so away from the edge of heating area. The experimental results
of runner show that the subsection welding can make the residual compressive stress engender in the blade
dangerous area while the stress value is greatly inuenced by the length of the welding section of blade outlet.
The local heating can further decrease the value of residual stress near blade outlet, while the local heating
processed after heat treatment is better than that processed before heat treatment.

KEY WORDS: Blade; Subsection welding; Local heating; Welding residual stress

1. Introduction of blades mainly include the working stress and the

Fatigue cracks in nearly all of turbine runners
blades appear during the working process, which
can greatly decrease the working eciency of hy-
droelectric station and result in the great economic
loss[14] . For cracking problem of blades, some solu-
tions have been put forward by domestic and overseas
researchers, such as setting the wedge plates in the
middle of the weld of bands, adding the reinforcing
plates outside the weld of bands, welding the block
tapping in advance on the two terminals of bands,
etc[510] . However, these solutions are unpractical
and the cracking problem of runner blades cannot be
solved at all.
For a certain runner structure, the key factor in-
ducing fatigue cracks of blades is the runner s stress
state because the blades material is changeless[11,12] .
In the process of runner working, the stress sources
Corresponding author. Prof., Ph.D.; Tel.: +86 24 89723472;
E-mail address: superjsd@163.com (S.D. Ji).
welding residual stress. The researches show that
both the peak value of working stress and the peak
value of welding stress appear in the weld of blade
outlet or nearby[1315] . Because the working stress of
a certain runner structure is correspondingly change-
less, the cracking problem of blades can be thoroughly
solved only by changing the distribution of stress and
decreasing welding residual stress in dangerous region
of blade.
For a certain welding structure, the residual tensile
stress in weld results from residual compressive plas-
tic deformation, which can inuence its adjacent re-
gion and result into the appearance of welding residual
compressive stress[16] . Therefore, the method of sub-
section welding is put forward. Moreover, the welding
process of workpiece is considered as the local heat-
ing while the local heating region is equivalent to the
weld. To some welding workpiece, the welding resid-
ual tensile stress appears in weld or nearby while the
residual compressive stress appears far away from the
952 S.D. Ji et al.: J. Mater. Sci. Technol., 2010, 26(10), 951956
Fig. 1 Dimensions of plane s xed structure
weld. Therefore, the method of local heating is put
forward[17] . In this paper, on basis of plane experi-
ment, the welding residual stress eld of some hydro-
electric station s runner is regulated and controlled by
means of the subsection welding and the local heat-
ing. The optimizing technologies of subsection weld-
ing and local heating are put forward, which make the
compressive stress appear in the dangerous region of
blades.
2. Plane s Experimental Result and Discus-
sion
2.1 Conrmation of plane structure
There are two intentions to do plane experiment
in this paper. One intention is to prove the rational-
ity of the subsection welding and the local heating,
the other is to conrm the reasonable parameters of
the subsection welding and the local heating on some
turbine runner of Nanshui hydroelectric station.
In the plane experiment, the thickness of plane is
16 mm and the half V type grooves are made in the
two opposite sides of plane. In order to increase the
rigidity of plane in the process of experiment, the xed
structure of plane is specially designed, as shown in
Fig. 1.
The material of plane is 0Cr13Ni5Mo. The CO2
gas shielded arc welding is used. The welding current
is 240 A, the voltage is 30 V and the welding velocity
is 5 mm/s.
In order to study the inuence of subsection weld-
ing on the distribution of residual stress, the weld is
divided into three sections to weld. The length of two
end welding sections is 50 mm and 100 mm, respec-
tively. Moreover, the two end welding sections are
welded before the middle section.
The local heating is processed after the subsec-
tion welding. During the local heating, the distance
from the heating center to the end of plane is 240 mm
and the heating dimensions are 40 mm100 mm.
Fig. 2 Measurment position of plane s residual stress
Fig. 3 Contrast of transverse residual stress along the
weld
After the maximum heating temperature reaches
580 C or so and then is kept for 10 min, the heat-
ing process is nished.
2.2 Conrmation of measurement scheme on stress
The blind hole technique is used to measure the
stress of the plane after welding. The type of stress
measurement equipment is YC-III, which is produced
by the Engineering Industry of Zhengzhou Academy.
Figure 2 shows the measurement position of
plane s stress after welding. The distance between the
adjacent points along the weld in the plane is 30 mm,
because it must be long enough to meet the need that
the work of stress measurement between the adjacent
points will be done twice.
2.3 Results and discussion
Because the appearance of crack is mainly related
to the transverse residual stress, we mainly discusses
the transverse residual stress under the condition of
dierent technologies.
Figure 3 is the contrast of transverse residual
stress along the weld under the condition of the con-
ventional welding, the subsection welding and the lo-
cal heating. It can be seen that the subsection weld-
ing can enlarge the area of low residual stress in weld
while the local heating can decrease the peak value of
 S.D. Ji et al.: J. Mater. Sci. Technol., 2010, 26(10), 951956 953

Fig. 4 Temperature eld of plane during local heating Fig. 5 Francis turbine runner

residual tensile stress near the heating region. For the

plane with a thickness of 16 mm, the eect on decreas-
ing the residual stress of the prior welding section is
obvious when the distance from one point to the end
of middle section is less than 50 mm. The decreas- Fig. 6 Subsection mode of blade s weld
ing eect is gradually minishing with the increase of
distance. To the local heating, the best position of de- blade outlet s transition llet and the blade inlet s
creasing the welding transverse residual tensile stress transition llet, respectively.
is about 60 mm away from the heating center. To the turbine runner, the most dangerous region
The temperature of plastic deformation of is near the blades outlet. Integrating with the above-
0Cr13Ni5Mo can be obtained by the following expres- mentioned results of plane experiment, the concrete
sion. welding technologies are established as follows:
s (1) The caterpillar-band electric heating is
T = + T0 = processed before welding. The temperature of pre-
E
heating is 120 C or so.
5.5 108 (2) The welding method is the gas shielded arc
+ 25 286.94 C
2.0 1011 10.5 106 welding and the shielding gas is 78%Ar+22%CO2 .
(3) The welding current is 240 A and the voltage
where s is the yield strength, E is the elastic modu-
is 30 V.
lus and is the thermal expansion coecient. T0 is
(4) The two ends of blade ((2) and (3)) are welded
the room temperature, whose value is 25 C.
rst. The lengths of blade outlet s welding section (2)
Therefore, the residual compressive plastic defor-
range from 40 mm to 90 mm. Moreover, the lengths
mation appears in the region, where the maximum
of blade 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13 and 15 are 40 mm, 50 mm,
temperature value is higher than 286.9 C. This region
60 mm, 60 mm, 70 mm, 90 mm, 80 mm and 90 mm,
can aect and then make the nearby region engender
respectively.
the residual tensile plastic deformation, namely the
(5) The blade outlet s transition llet ((4)) and
residual compressive stress. By analyzing Figs. 3 and
the blade inlet s transition llet ((5)) are welded be-
4, it is known that the decreasing eect is best when
fore welding the middle welding section of blade ((1)).
the temperature of some position reaches 250 C or so.
3.2 Conrmation of local heating s technology
3. Conrmation of Runner s Welding Opti-
mizing Scheme The local heating is processed after welding by us-
ing the ame method. The concrete welding technolo-
3.1 Conrmation of subsection welding s technology
gies are as follows:
(1) The gas is the acetylene, which is adopted to
The serial number of each of Francis turbine
heat the blade.
runner s blades is shown in Fig. 5. During the ex-
(2) The length of heating region perpendicular to
periment, the subsection welding is processed on the
the weld is about 200 mm and the width of heating
blade 1, blade 3, blade 7, blade 9, blade 13 and blade
region along the weld is 100 mm.
15.
(3) The distance from the edge of heating region
Figure 6 shows the subsection mode of sub-
to the region of high residual tensile stress near the
section welding. In the gure, (1), (2) and (3)
blade outlet is controlled from 60 to 70 mm.
represent the serial number of welding sections in
(4) The heating temperature is chosen as 580 C,
the weld of blade. (4) and (5) represent the
954 S.D. Ji et al.: J. Mater. Sci. Technol., 2010, 26(10), 951956
Fig. 7 Distrbution of stress measurement s points
Fig. 8 Locally enlarged diagram of runner s blade
because the temperature of runner heat treatment is
590 C.
(5) When the temperature near blade outlet
reaches 50 C, the heating process is nished.
(6) The cooling technology is processed by means
of spraying water near blade outlet.
3.3 Conrmation of measurement scheme on welding
residual stress
Figure 7 shows the schematic of distribution of
stress measurement s points. Figure 8 is the locally
enlarged diagram of blade which sticks strain rosette.
In Fig. 7, point 1 lies in the weld and point 2 lies
in the welding fusion line. The distance from point
2 to point 5 is 60 mm and the distance between ad-
jacent points is even. To these positions whose dis-
tance from one point to the fusion line is 20 mm or
40 mm, the number of measurement points near the
blade outlet along the weld is ve and the distance
between adjacent points is 30 mm. The measurement
of residual stress is done three times: after the subsec-
tion welding, after the local heating and after the heat
treatment. This is why the distance between adjacent
points is chosen as 30 mm.
4. Runner s Experimental Results and Dis-
cussion
4.1 Eect of subsection welding on runner residual
stress
Figure 9 is the distribution of transverse residual
Fig. 9 Distribution of y perpendicular to the weld
Fig. 10 Distribution of y along the direction of weld
stress y perpendicular to the weld near the outlet
of blade 6 and blade 7. In this gure, the horizon-
tal ordinate represents the distance from one point
to crown. Under the condition of conventional weld-
ing, the residual tensile stress appears in the weld and
nearby, while the residual compressive stress appears
far away from the weld and the peak value of resid-
ual tensile stress appears near the welding fusion line.
Under the condition of subsection welding, the resid-
ual compressive stress appears near the weld of blade
outlet. This result veries that the subsection welding
can decrease the peak value of residual tensile stress
in blade dangerous region. Therefore, so long as the
length of the prior welding section is reasonable, the
residual tensile stress in the dangerous region of blade
can be changed into the residual compressive stress.
Figure 10 is the distribution of y along the weld
of blade 6 and blade 7. In the gure, the horizontal or-
dinate represents the distance from one point to blade
outlet. Moreover, the distance from each of the points
to the fusion line is 20 mm, as shown in Fig. 7. It can
be seen that the residual compressive stress appears
when the distance from one point to the blade outlet
is less than 80 mm. When the distance is bigger than
80 mm, the dierence between the subsection welding
and the conventional welding is less and less.
Figure 11 is the relation between the residual
stress and the length of blade outlet s welding sec-
tion. Point 1, point 2 and point 3 in the gure are all
 S.D. Ji et al.: J. Mater. Sci. Technol., 2010, 26(10), 951956
Fig. 11 Relation between y and welding length of blade s
outlet
Fig. 12 Distribution of y along the direction of weld
shown in Fig. 7. It is known that the residual stress
in the dangerous region increases with the increase
of welding section s length. The residual stress near
blade outlet is minimum when the length of blade
outlet s welding section is 40 mm. These results are
the same as the plane experimental results and further
verify the rationality of plane experiment s design.
4.2 Eect of heat treatment on runner residual stress
In order to decrease the welding residual stress
of whole blade, the heat treatment is processed after
welding. The holding furnace is the No.107 furnace
produced by Harbin Grate Company. In the process
of heat treatment, the high temperature is 590 C, the
holding time is 4 h, the heating rate is 50 C per hour,
and the cooling rate is 30 C per hour.
Figure 12 shows the eect of heat treatment on
the residual stress y along the weld of blade 6
and blade 7. It is known that the heat treatment
evens the residual stress. For the conventional weld-
ing, the heat treatment greatly decreases the peak
value of residual tensile stress in the dangerous re-
gion of blade outlet and the value is changed from
352 MPa to 118 MPa. For the subsection weld-
ing, the heat treatment decreases not only the ten-
sile stress of blade, but also the compressive stress in
the dangerous region of blade. However, the region of
955
Fig. 13 Distribution of the blade 7 s y along the direction
of weld
Fig. 14 Distribution of the blade 13 s y along the direc-
tion of weld
compressive stress is almost unchanged.
4.3 Eect of local heating on runner s residual stress
In the runner s welding process, the subsection
welding can make the blade outlet s dangerous re-
gion engender the residual compressive stress, but the
value of residual compressive stress after heat treat-
ment is relatively low. Therefore, it is necessary to
research the local heating technology.
Figure 13 is the distribution of residual stress
along the weld of blade 7. Figure 14 is the distrib-
ution of residual stress along the weld of blade 13.
Figure 15 is the contrast of residual stress between
blade 4 and blade 10. In these three gures, the dis-
tance from each of all the points to the fusion line of
blade is 20 mm. For blade 7 and blade 10, the local
heating is processed after heat treatment. For blade
4 and blade 13, the local heating is processed before
heat treatment.
It can be seen that the eect of local heating on
the residual stress in dangerous region is very great.
While the local heating increases the residual stress
in the heating region, the residual stress is greatly de-
creased near the heating region. When the distance
from one point to the edge of heating region is about
50 mm, the eect on decreasing the residual stress is
best. Moreover, from the view of the eect on de-
956 S.D. Ji et al.: J. Mater. Sci. Technol., 2010, 26(10), 951956
Fig. 15 Contrast of y between blade 4 and blade 10 along
the weld
creasing residual stress near blade outlet, the local
heating processed after heat treatment is better than
that processed before heat treatment. Although the
local heating processed after heat treatment results
in the high value of welding residual tensile stress in
heating region, this phenomenon cannot react on the
rupture of the blade.
5. Conclusions
(1) For the plane with a thickness of 16 mm, the
latter welding section of the subsection welding can
decrease welding residual stress of the prior welding
section. The decreasing eect is obvious when the dis-
tance is less than 50 mm away from the end of latter
welding section. The local heating can decrease resid-
ual stress and the best position is 60 mm away from
the edge of heating region.
(2) The subsection welding can obviously decrease
the peak value of residual tensile stress and make
the welding residual compressive stress appear in the
blade s dangerous region. When the welding section
lengths of blade outlet range from 40 mm to 90 mm,
the decreasing eect of residual stress is decreasing
with the welding section length s increase. When the
length is 40 mm, the value of welding residual stress
in the dangerous region of blade is about 350 MPa.
(3) Under the condition of reasonable parameters
of the local heating, the welding residual compres-
sive stress near the weld of blade outlet is further
decreased. From the view of the eect on decreas-
ing residual stress near blade outlet, the local heat-
ing processed after heat treatment excels before heat
treatment.
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