Long life spectrum fatigue of carbon and stainless steel welds

G Marquis*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

Abstract

Fatigue tests of non-load carrying carbon and stainless steel fillet welds have been performed using spectrum loading typical for rail vehicles. The proportion of spectrum cycles exceeding the constant amplitude fatigue limit ranged between 0.86% and 100% and cycles to failure ranged from 4.2 x 10(5) to 2.1 x 10(7). For the longest tests, the majority of fatigue damage was contributed by cycles with stress ranges less than the constant amplitude fatigue limit. For the carbon steel welds a significant portion of fatigue damage was produced by cycles with stress ranges less than 50% of the fatigue limit but only a small fraction of damage was produced by cycles of this size for the stainless steel welds. The carbon steel welds had slightly better fatigue strength at lives less than 10(7) cycles but results suggest that stainless steels may have superior long-life variable amplitude fatigue strength when a greater portion of life is spent in the early stages of crack nucleation and growth.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)739-753
Number of pages15
JournalFatigue and Fracture of Engineering Materials and Structures
Volume19
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1996
MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

Keywords

  • spectrum loading
  • carbon steel fillet welds
  • stainless steel fillet welds
  • small load cycles
  • short cracks
  • rail vehicles
  • CRACK CLOSURE
  • OVERLOADS

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