Assessment of some factors affecting fatigue endurance of welded cruciform joints using statistical techniques

Three statistical techniques have been used to optimise some of the factors affecting fatigue life of Flux Cored Arc Welded (FCAW) cruciform joints containing Lack of Penetration (LOP) defects. High strength, quenched and tempered steel (ASTM 517 'F' Grade) has been used as the base material throughout the investigation. Design of Experiments (DoE) concept has been used to optimise the required number of experiments. Fatigue experiments have been conducted in a mechanical resonance pulsar, under constant amplitude loading. The techniques described in this paper are fairly simple and economical to optimise the time consuming fatigue tests.