“…Large displacement effects have been incorporated in the simulation by including the non-linear geometry option, NLGEOM [12]. The 'element birth' technique is used, simulating weld elements during their application to bring them into existence in the structural analysis without incurring strain incompatibilities, details of which have been described in previous publications [5,7,11]. The 'element birth' technique generates the mesh representing the weld part from the start of the FE analysis, keeping the weld elements at an assumed softening temperature, TSOFT, via a user subroutine [12], until the moment of weld application in the structural analysis.…”