Fatigue life prediction of welded cruciform joints using strain energy density factor approach

The influences of two welding processes, namely, shielded metal arc welding (SMAW) and flux cored arc welding (FCAW), on fatigue life of cruciform joints containing lack of penetration (LOP) defects have been analyzed by using the strain energy density factor (SEDF) approach. Load carrying cruciform joints were fabricated from ASTM 517 `F' grade steel. Fatigue crack growth experiments were carried out in a mechanical resonance vertical pulsator (SCHENCK 200 kN capacity) with a frequency of 30 Hz under constant amplitude loading (R = 0). It was found that the fatigue lives of the cruciform joints fabricated by SMAW process were relatively higher than the FCAW counterpart. Moreover, fracture mechanics equations have been developed to predict the fatigue life of the cruciform joints fabricated by the above-mentioned two processes.