Fatigue Property of Welded T-Shaped Joints Using the Structural Stress Method

Abstract

Various types of welded joints are of wide application in industrial and productional regions, including T-shaped, butt, and fillet joints of steel, stainless steel, and cast steel. Under cyclic fatigue load, the fatigue performance of welded joints is significant for the engineering design and it’s of interest to investigate the fatigue property of the welded joints using the recommended prediction methods. In this paper, the fatigue performance of welded T-shaped joints is investigated. The mesh-insensitive property of the structural stress method is validated with the comparison of various prediction methods. The fatigue cyclic life of welded T-shaped joints under tensile loads is analyzed. The structural stress curve of T-shaped joints with various base metal thicknesses is determined for the engineering design.