Correlating the local geometry of welded joints evaluated from 3D-scans
with their fatigue strength by probabilistic fracture mechanics
Abstract
Welded joints have a large variation of their geometry and is one
important reason for the comparable large scatter regarding their
fatigue life. This study presents and tests an approach for the
probabilistic fatigue assessment of welded joints based on their
individual local geometry. This approach is adopted from the IBESS
research cluster and combined with previous work regarding the
evaluation of geometrical parameters from 3D-surface scans. The fatigue
life was calculated based on 26 fatigue test series. In this study the
fatigue strength calculated by the IBESS approach tended to be
overestimated in some cases that is mainly related to the
underestimation of the scatter range of the simulated fatigue tests
according to the real results. Geometrical parameters were varied in the
IBESS calculations and showed that no significant influence on the
calculated fatigue strength was determined for weld toe radii
> 2 mm and flank angle > 30°.