Modification and application of notch equivalent stress method for fatigue assessment on welded structures

PurposeThis paper aims to study and modify the notch equivalent stress method, as well as to establish the notch equivalent stress range S–N curve and apply it to the fatigue assessment of engineering examples.Design/methodology/approachThis paper studies the notch equivalent stress method and puts forward the concept of “singular equivalent crack”. Combined with the fatigue test results, by proposing to consider the singular coefficient of the transition angle of the welded structure and the introduction of material correction factors, this paper derives the notch equivalent stress equation for commonly used welded joints applicable to steel, and finally establishes the notch equivalent stress range of the S–N curve.FindingsThe obtained results show that the dispersion of fatigue data is 65.6 and 75.4% for T-joints and transverse cross-joints, respectively, under S–N curves using notched equivalent stress compared to the nominal stress range. The fatigue evaluation error of the modified notch equivalent stress equation for transverse cross welded joints improved by 50.65%, 53.1 and 39.6% on average, respectively, compared to the original other methods. The fatigue evaluation error for T-joints improved by 13.4 and 13.9%, respectively, compared to the original other methods.Originality/valueThere are relatively few studies on the fatigue assessment of notch equivalent stress method. In this paper, the notch equivalent stress method is studied and modified to improve the accuracy of fatigue assessment of welded structures with singular stresses.