A review of multiaxial fatigue of weldments: experimental results, design code and critical plane approaches

A survey of biaxial (bending or tension and torsion) constant amplitude fatigue of welded connections is presented. Re-analysis of 233 experimental results from eight different studies has been performed based on hot spot stresses and three potential damage parameters: maximum principal stress range; maximum shear stress range; and a modified critical plane model for welds. Of the three methods, the critical plane model was most successful in resolving the data to a single S-N line. The design curve for all toe failures based on the critical plane model was FAT 97 with a slope of 3. By excluding butt welds and including only fillet welds that failed at the weld toe, the design curve was increased to FAT 114 with a slope of 3. However, observed scatter was 70-100% larger than that observed in uniaxial loaded specimens analysed using the hot spot approach.