Fatigue of weld ends under combined in- and out-of-phase multiaxial loading

Abstract

Weld start and end points are fatigue failure sensitive locations. Their fatigue behaviour especially in thin sheet structures under multiaxial load conditions is not sufficiently explored so far. Therefore, a research project was initiated to increase the knowledge concerning this topic, which is of special interest in the automotive industry. In the present study, fatigue tests on welded joints were conducted. In the numerical part of the study, notch stresses were calculated with an idealised weld end model. A numerical method which combines the geometrical and statistical size effect to an integrated approach was used, in order to consider the size effects.

Sharp three-dimensional notches under combined nominal normal and shear fatigue loading

“…Nowadays, different S-N curves are assigned to weld toe and weld root failure scenarios induced by normal and shear stresses. For the case of failure at weld root, a fatigue assessment concept covering both geometrical and statistical size effects was presented in [7]. Many research activities have been initiated during the last years for the investigation of fatigue design of multiaxially loaded welded joints [8][9][10].…”