Modelling of temperature field and residual stress of vacuum brazing for stainless steel plate-fin structure

This paper presented a finite element (FE) modeling of the temperature field and residual stress of the vacuum brazing for a counterflow stainless steel plate-fin structure. A sequential coupling calculation procedure was developed by using commercial program ABAQUS. The brazing temperature field and brazed residual stress distribution regularities have been successfully achieved. The results show that the brazed joint suffers high tensile residual stress and the fillets become the weakest zone. In the plate, the longitudinal stress is large and would have to play the main role on strength while the transverse and shear stress are very small. The residual stresses in fin are complex and their distribution in the parallel fin is much different from that of vertical fin. These results provide the theoretical knowledge for the optimization of process and the control of brazed residual stresses for stainless steel plate-fin structure.