Low-Cycle Fatigue Evaluation Using the Weld Master S-N Curve

Abstract

In the context of fatigue evaluation in the low-cycle regime, the use of the master S-N curve in conjunction with elastic FE-based structural stress calculations is presented. An elastic pseudo structural stress estimation is introduced by assuming that Neuber’s rule applies in relating structural stress and strain concentration at a weld to the material’s cyclic stress-strain behavior. With the pseudo structural stress procedure, recent sources of recent full scale test data on pipe and vessel welds were analyzed as a validation of the proposed procedure. The estimated fatigue lives versus actual test lives show a reasonable agreement. Finally, the feasibility of using monotonic stress-strain curves as a first approximation is also examined for applications when cyclic stress-strain curve may not be readily found. The analysis results indicate that the life estimations using monotonic stress-strain curves are reasonable, with the recent test data falling within mean ± 2σ, where σ represents the standard deviation of the master S-N curve.