Fatigue life investigation of non-load carrying fillet weld of structural offshore steel S460G2+M using experiment and FEM simulation

This research deals with the fatigue life investigation using experiment and FEM simulation on longitudinal fillet weld of structural offshore steel S460G2+M with a thickness of 10mm. The experimental fatigue test is conducted based on nominal stress (NS) approach while the simulation uses the effective notch stress (ENS) approach for fatigue life assessment. The investigation begins with the preparation of the longitudinal fillet weld fatigue specimen using Milling Machine based on the IIW fatigue specimen design recommendation and joined using the semi-automatic GMAW process following the AWS D1.1 procedure. Fatigue testing on non-load carrying fillet weld is conducted using the Instron Fatigue Machine with a stress ratio of 0.1 with constant amplitude loading and stress loading from 50%-75% of the yield strength of the base material. For the simulation approach, the 3D longitudinal fillet weld geometry is created using CAD based on the ENS design procedures of IIW where the sizes and dimensions are similar to the experimental fatigue specimen. The static elastic stress analysis of the model is conducted using MSC Marc/Mentat FEM software. Based on the IIW fatigue data evaluation, it is found that the natural mean curve of the longitudinal fillet weld obtained 146 MPa of FAT class which exceeds approximately 106% from the IIW FAT class recommendation for a longitudinal fillet joint. However, the characteristic curve of 97.7% failure probability of the parts only attained 95 MPa of FAT class, but still exceeds approximately 33% form the IIW FAT class. In the ENS fatigue assessment of the 3D longitudinal fillet weld, it is found that the model obtained 195MPa of FAT class which is inferior approximately 15 % from the FAT class recommendation of IIW. Also, it is found that both S-N curves of NS after conversion to ENS system have a good agreement with the S-N curve of ENS of 3D longitudinal fillet weld model and the IIW recommendation due to only 16 % and 34% lower as compared with the IIW FAT class recommendation for ENS.