Fatigue strength of aluminium welded joints by a non-local approach

Abstract

In this paper, the numerical implicit gradient approach already validated for steel welded joints is also used for aluminium joints. Some peculiarities of aluminium joints are discussed and a general fatigue scatter band for arc welded joints has been proposed. The analysed experimental data taken from the literature range from the simple butt-welded joints with a thickness of 2 mm up to the extruded I-beam with a length of about 2 m. The obtained SN behaviour has an inverse slope of 3.7 and, at high cycle fatigue, the strength is about half that of steel joints.