Shear Strength and Failure Angle Analysis of Fillet Welds Based on Structural Stress Approach

Abstract

With conventional shear stress formula given in AWS B4.0, huge difference of strength between longitudinal and transverse fillet welds exists, and different failure angle of two type welds could not be interpreted. In this paper, a mesh-insensitive structural stress based shear strength definition is presented for correlating weldment test data obtained from longitudinal and transverse fillet welds in literature. Finite element model were created according to the geometry of specimens, and shear stress at different cut plane of weld were calculated. Failure angle could be interpreted reasonably for two type fillet welds, and discrepancies in shear strength between transverse and longitudinal shear tests can now be reconciled, resulting in a single shear strength value regardless of specimen types and loading conditions with this proposed approach.