Fatigue lifetime assessment of weld ends with idealized or real geometry in steel joints for off-road vehicles using the Peak Stress Method

The Notch Stress Intensity Factors (NSIFs) can be rapidly estimated by FEM for the fatigue analysis of welded structures by applying the Peak Stress Method (PSM). Two steel welded joint geometries adopted for off-road vehicles and containing four intermittent fillet welds were tested under a uniaxial loading. To apply the PSM, an idealized as well as the real 3D scanned geometry of the weld ends were implemented in the numerical analyses. The PSM properly anticipated where crack initiated and estimated the fatigue lives in fairly good agreement with the outcomes of the fatigue tests.