Full-size testing to determine stress concentration factors of dragline tubular joints

Influence of variations in geometric parameters and an alternative design for improved fatigue life of a mining dragline joint

“…The fourth bracing, however, is smaller with dimensions φ 168.28-7.11 mm. The radius of the weld fillet at the junction of the main chord and the overlapping bracings is taken as an average of 15 mm, in concordance with the laboratory experimental measurements reported by Pang [15]. The dimensions of the main chord and the side-bracings were chosen adequately long (L 0 = 2700 mm and L 1 = 1000 mm) in the FEA model, in order to ensure that the end conditions do not have any significant influence on the stresses and strains at the joint node [16].…”

“…Field observations and laboratory measurements [3,15] had shown that the weld fillet radius ranged from 10 mm to 30 mm at various locations along the joint footprint. The initial average weld fillet radius in the FEA model was assumed to be 15 mm and this was varied between 10 mm to 32 mm to capture the entire plausible range.…”

Comparison of fatigue performances of gapped and partially overlapped CHS -joints

“…This implies that the fatigue failure mode of a partially overlapped CHS K -joint could be different from a gapped joint in which the chord fatigue failure almost always determines the fatigue life. Research on fatigue behavior of overlapped tubular K -joints with an overlapping ratio larger than 50% can be found in the works done by Gho et al [12,13], Gao et al [14] and Pang et al [15]. In addition, Mashiri et al [16] studied the SCF and fatigue behavior of thin-walled CHS and square hollow section T -joints under in-plane bending loading.…”

Square hollow section (SHS) T-joints with concrete-filled chords subjected to in-plane fatigue loading in the brace

“…Most of the research on empty tubular joints was driven by the desire to understand fatigue strength for the design of offshore structures and onshore structures such as communication towers and construction cranes and to some extent structures such as dragline booms and masts (Pang et al [8]). The fatigue design rules for the empty welded tubular nodal joints are given in different fatigue design guidelines used in Europe, North America, Australia and the rest of the world (EC3 [9], AWS [10], API [11], SAA [12], IIW [13], Zhao et al [14]).…”