Fatigue fracture investigation of a tube-to-tubesheet welded joint

Abstract

A novel fatigue test specimen was developed to investigate the fatigue fracture behaviors of a shell and tube heat exchanger. It consists of a single tube and a tubesheet joined by welding and produces a tube-to-tubesheet welded joint. A fatigue test was conducted under tensile cyclic load. Defects were generated from the root of the joint and propagated with complicated crack front trajectories. Crack propagation (CP) simulation is performed to review the CP behavior using the extended finite element method (X-FEM). The experimental and numerical studies are succeeded to interpret the fundamental fracture characteristics of the welded joint.