MTM611 – Selection and Life-Cycles of Materials

6. Fatigue in Welded Joints

Lecturer: Widodo Widjaja Basuki

10.03.2018
Campus-Semanggi, Jakarta

Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Atma Jaya University

Atma Jaya – Chatolic University of Indonesia

www.atmajaya.ac.id
 Welding of metals

Actual Troat

Effective Troat

Toe
Face Toe Toe
Face
Reinforcement
Toe

Root opening

Weld root
→ Substantial reduction of fatigue strength due to a weld
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 Fatigue of Welded Joints and Parent Metal

→ Substantial reduction of fatigue strength due to a weld

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 Fatigue Strength Reduction due to Welding

 Stress concentration due to weld shape and joint geometry

 Stress concentration due to weld imperfections
 Welding residual stress
 The microstructure of the weld metal and heat affected zone (HAZ)

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 Effects of Weld Shape and Joint Geometry

 Increase / decrease the cross

section
→ lead to concentration of
stresses
 The precise location and the
magnitude of the stress concentration
depends on the design of the joints
and the direction of loads
 The weld toe  primary
location for fatigue cracking in joints
that have good root penetration

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 Fatigue Cracking From the weld Root

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 Geometry Parameters

Geometry parameters that influencing fatigue

of welded joints by affecting the local
t
concentration:
 Plate thickness (T)
 Attachment toe-to-toe length (L) r
 Weld toe radius (r) q

 Weld angle (q)

 The profile of the weld
surface l L
Ds T

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 Influence of the Parameters on the Fatigue Strength

Fatigue strength of a welded joint

decreases with
• Increasing plate thickness
• Increasing attachment length
• Misalignment
• Increasing weld angle
• Decreasing toe radius

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 Influence of the Parameters on the Fatigue Strength

→The largest
influencing para-
Meter over the
range 1 – 8 mm

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 Stress Concenration

Increase the cross section´lead to

concentration of stresses

 Single-V and single-U welded joints

have rather higher fatigue strength than
double-V and double-U

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 Stress Concenration due to Weld Discontinuities

Stress analysis in the weld

Toe  Kt approx. 3 and
comparable to Kt for
a hole in plate.
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𝐾𝑡 =
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Observation: lower fatigue
strength due to microscopic
features at the weld toe

Planar weld imperfection (e.g. hydrogen cracks, lack of side-wall fusion)

substantially reduce the fatigue life. Volumetric imperfection (inclusions and
porosity) can be tolerated to some extent.

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 Planar Weld Imperfection (Hydrogen Cracks)
→ Planar weld imperfection substantially reduce the fatigue life

• Usually in ferritic steels

• Originated in HAZ associated with the coarse grains

Three factors combine to cause cracking:

• Hydrogen generated by the welding
process
• A hard brittle structure
• Tensile stresses acting on the welded
joint

Other planar imperfection: hot cracking,

lack of the side wall fusion

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 Volumetric Weld Imperfections

→ such as slag inclusions and porosity

Notch effects of these imperfections is

generally lower than that of the weld toe

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 Welding Residual Stresses

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 Effect of Material Properties on the Fatigue Strength

→ Due to domination of crack propagation in the fatigue life , material

properties just have minor effects on the fatigue strength

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 Microstructure and Fracture Toughness

→ Little influences of the

variety HAZ microstructures
in he weldment area on the
crack growth rate.

→ Little influence of fracture

toughness of the weld metal,
HAZ and base metal on the
crack growth rate.
But limiting size the fatigue
crack could reach before the
material fails unstable

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 Methods for Improving the Fatigue Life of Welded Joints

Postweld treatments:
• Removing intrusions at the weld toe
• Reducing the joint stress concentration
• Modifying the residual stress distribution

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 Methods for Improving the Fatigue Life of Welded Joints

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 Effect of Stress Relief as a function of Stress Ratio

→ PWHT can reduce the residual

stresses by improving the fatigue
life for partially or fully
compressive load cycles

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 Improving the Fatigue Strength

→ Hammer peening is the best method to relief the residual stresses

Elimination of intrusions and introduce the compressive stresses at the same time

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