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Welding is one of the most common methods in industrial practice for joining components. Its main advantages are high speed in manufacturing combined with low costs and, usually, a high degree of flexibility, integrity and reliability. Nevertheless, welding is a highly complex metallurgical process and, therefore, weldments are susceptible to material discontinuities, flaws and residual stresses which may lead to structural failure and life time reduction. As a consequence weldments are an important field of fracture mechanics methods although its application is more complex than for homogeneous or non-welded structures. The aim of the paper is to provide an overview on the current state of fracture mechanics application to weldments. It starts by discussing the specific features which any fracture mechanics analysis of weldments has to take into account. Then, the experimental determination of fracture toughness, fatigue crack propagation and tensile properties of weldments is addressed. Finally, the analytical determination of the crack driving force in components and structural integrity assessment approaches for weldments are presented.
The acronym IBESS stands for "Integrale Bruchmechanische Ermittlung der Schwingfestigkeit von Schweißverbindungen" which, translated from German, means "integral fracture mechanics determination of the fatigue strength of welds". the method introduced in this study is the outcome of a German Research cluster in which eight partners were involved. A list of them is found at the end this study. The IBESS method is characterized by a number of partially novel aspects and elements of fracture mechanics applied to the evaluation of fatigue stength of welds. The most important ones are: (a) Determination of fatigue crack propagation for mechanically/physically short and long cracks. (b) Determination of an elastic-plastic crack driving force for the treatment of mechanically short cracks. To that purpose an analytical expression for the cyclic J-integral was developed and validated against finite element results. (c) The gradual build-up of the crack closure phenomenon is determined by using cyclic R-curves which describe the crack size dependency of the fatigue crack propagation threshold in the physically short crack growth regime. (d) A physically meaningful initial crack size is defined for total life consideration. It is based on a two-criteria approach. Based on a cyclic R-curve analysis, the crack size at crack arrest is determined as a lower bound. If, however, a pre-existing crack-like defect is larger than this, its dimensions define the initial crack size. (e) Multiple crack propagation at the weld toe is considered. (f) In conjunction with this, the variation of the weld toe geometry is considered in a stochastic model. (g) As a result, both the fatigue limit (defined for 107 loading cycles) and the finite life (high cycle) fatigue S-N curve are obtained statistically. (h) At various analysis steps, parametric equations have been developed which allow for analytical calculations instead of complete stochastic analyses based on finite elements which are unrealistic even at present. (i) The method has been validated with a large number of S-N curves including two materials, three weldment types with two geometries, each referring to differnt manufacturing technologies and the as-welded and stressrelieved state. (j) Althrough not finally solved, an extended discussion is provided on the issue of welding residual stresses including their redistribution under cyclic loading. (k) A number of simplifications is proposed at lower analyses levels which, however, partly lack complete validation by now.
Any fracture mechanics based determination of the fatigue strength of weldments requires different input information such as the local weld geometry and material data of the areas the crack is passing through during its propagation. The latter is so far not a trivial task as the fatigue crack is usually initiated at the weld toe at the transition from the weld metal to the heat affected zone and it subsequently propagates through the different microstructures of the latter to eventually grow into the base material and to cause final fracture. This paper describes how the material input information has gained particularly for heat affected zone material by thermo-mechanically simulated material specimens for two steels of quite different static strength. The data comprise the cyclic stress-strain curve, the crack closure effect-corrected crack growth characteristics, long crack fatigue crack propagation thresholds, the dependency of the parameter on the crack length and monotonic fracture resistance. The substantial experimental effort was necessary for the validation exercises of the IBESS approach, however, within the scope of practical application more easily applicable estimating methods are required. For that purpose the paper provides a number of appropriate proposals in line with its check against the reference data from the elaborate analyses.
This book provides a comprehensive and thorough guide to those readers who are lost in the often-confusing context of weld fatigue. It presents straightforward information on the fracture mechanics and material background of weld fatigue, starting with fatigue crack initiation and short cracks, before moving on to long cracks, crack closure, crack growth and threshold, residual stress, stress concentration, the stress intensity factor, J-integral, multiple cracks, weld geometries and defects, microstructural parameters including HAZ, and cyclic stress-strain behavior. The book treats all of these essential and mutually interacting parameters using a unique form of analysis.