Fatigue Analysis of Load-Carrying Fillet Welds

The fatigue strength of load-carrying fillet welds is, in most codes of practice, performed neglecting the influence of bending in the weld throat section. However, some commonly applied structural details give rise to significant bending in the weld throat section. An example of such a detail is a doubler plate connection, which is often applied in connection with modifications of offshore structures. As a part of the present work, fatigue tests have been performed with test specimens fabricated by the current industry standard for welded offshore steel structures. The fatigue tests show that the degree of bending (DOB) has an influence on the fatigue lifetime. The fatigue lifetime decreases significantly when increasing the bending stress. In order to take into account the effect of the bending, a new fatigue stress definition applicable for fillet welds failing through the weld is presented. Using the test results, it is shown that the new definition of fatigue stress can be used for a wide range of DOB with a low standard deviation of the resulting SN curve.