weldment 900 created to secure two plates together both denoted as 901 the weld geometry of the weldment 900 includes a weld toe 904 a weld profile 905 and a penetration 908 in the manufacture of the load bearing members 105 described herein it is advantageous to control the resultant residual stresses at the location of the weldment for example the stress diagram denoted 910 illustrates the resultant residual stress located under the weld toe 904 with u201c u201d indicating a compressive residual stress and u201c u2212 u201d indicating a tensile residual stress at the weld toe 904 it is desirable to achieve a compressive residual stress without the need for any post weld treatment of the weldment 900 to control the resultant residual stress at the location of the weldment 900 the weld simulation tools to be discussed immediately hereinafter may be utilized the results of the simulation may then be used to control the weld process which preferably comprises a robotic welding process to control the fit up of the plates 901 as well as the penetration 908 it is preferred that the plates are formed from a precision cutting operation such as laser cutting referring to fig1 a block diagram illustrating a preferred embodiment of a set of integrated models 1000 for performing a simulation analysis of a welding process is shown the integrated models 1000 work together to determine stresses and distortions of a material which is welded in the welding process the stresses and distortions have an adverse effect on the strengths and characteristics of the material therefore it is desired to model the stresses and distortions.