TWI Industrial Member Report Summary 585/1996
G R Razmjoo
The vast majority of engineering structures experience fluctuating complex stresses (eg biaxial, combined) in the vicinity of their welded components. In contrast to the wealth of experimental data on fatigue of welded joints under unidirectional loading, the data for complex stress states are rather limited.
Background
In recent years, sophisticated finite element stress analysis programmes and the ability to gather increasingly more detailed experimental stress data for prototype structures have enabled designers to determine stresses accurately. The ability to determine stress must be accompanied by the ability to analyse complex stresses in order to predict service life. In view of this, there is now an increasing need to generate data under realistic complex stress states. This necessitated a comprehensive literature review to establish the current state-of-the-art with respect to available data.
Objective
To review the available data on fatigue of welded specimens under complex loading with a view to identifying gaps in the knowledge and establishing areas requiring further study.