Abstract
The stainless-clad (SC) bimetallic steel is the most widely used laminated high-performance steel in construction, which often offers a variety of prominent structural performance and competitive advantages. Welding with electrodes of suitable mechanical properties and corrosion resistance is vital for SC bimetallic steel structures to ensure a complete corrosion-resistant surface. However, the research on welded connections under cyclic actions is very limited. Many recommendation designs and current standards for SC bimetallic steel are primarily developed for precision equipment, and they are not suitable for structural engineering. To this end, this paper aims to investigate the low-cycle fatigue behaviour of butt welded connections with different welding configurations for the SC bimetallic steel. Failure modes, cyclic characteristics and Masing behaviour of typical welded connections were analysed, and the low-cyclic fatigue behaviour was validated using the Basquin-Coffin-Manson model. A new proposed strain energy-based model was also proposed to describe. Differences in the low-cycle fatigue behaviour between the welded connections and the base bimetal were demonstrated, as well as that for various welding configurations. It was found that the low-cycle fatigue life of the welded connections with a transition weld zone is similar to that of these welded connections without a transition weld zone, both being about 60 % to 80 % of the base bimetal's fatigue life. However, the fatigue life of the welded connection with a single filler material is much shorter than that of the previous two, being only 15 % to 30 % of that of the base bimetal. It should be noted that both the adapted Basquin-Coffin-Manson model and the newly proposed strain energy-based model may predict well the low-cycle fatigue life of the three welded connections. Finally, the transition weld zone in these welded connections is recommended to be eliminated in order to simplify the welding procedures, and hence to improve welding efficiency.
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