Fatigue of welded components
- United States Steel, Pittsburgh, PA (United States)
- Lucius Pitkin, Inc., New York, NY (United States)
Fatigue cracks in engineering structures typically initiate from discontinuities associated with weld joints. Such discontinuities can be volumetric or planar in nature and, in either case, elevate local stresses sufficiently so as to drastically reduce weld joint fatigue strength. In addition, the weld geometry itself can induce stress concentrations higher than those associated with the weld discontinuities. For instance, one of the most fatigue sensitive weld details is a fillet weld termination oriented perpendicular to the applied cyclic stress field. In this case, fatigue cracking initiates from the toe of the fillet weld and propagates through the adjacent base metal in a rather rapid fashion. Although the applied service stresses may be within Code design allowables for ``fatigue rated`` components, welded and bolted connections can sufficiently elevate local stresses to initiate and propagate cracks. Since most fatigue failures occur at weldments, it is reasonable to expect that modern design codes would incorporate the effects of weldments on fatigue life. This paper examines the parameters which most affect the fatigue performance of weldments and the manner in which various codes address fatigue.
- OSTI ID:
- 136771
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-950740--; ISBN 0-7918-1344-4
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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