CWELD stress

mauriziop

How is calculated "bearing stress" for CWELD element?

Thanks

erdem.keskin

For a CWELD element, the bearing stress is calculated as the transmitted force divided by the effective projected contact area.

General formula:

Where:

• F = Force carried by the CWELD element (axial or resultant force depending on load case)
• A_proj = Projected contact area of the weld

Calculation Logic:

• The CWELD element represents a rigid weld connection between two components.
• After the analysis, extract the weld force (axial or resultant).
• Divide this force by the effective weld area.

If the weld nugget is assumed circular:

Where d is the weld diameter.

In sheet metal applications, bearing area is sometimes taken as:

Where t is the sheet thickness.

The exact area definition depends on modeling assumptions and the solver used (e.g., Altair OptiStruct or MSC Nastran).

In summary:
Bearing stress is not directly output by the solver for CWELD; it must be calculated manually from the weld force results.