Welding Residual Stress Behavior in Tubular Steel Joints under Multiaxial Loading

Abstract The lack of insight into the initial welding residual stress field and its behavior during the different phases of the fatigue damage namely crack initiation and propagation has led to conservative assumptions in fatigue design codes of welds. Since a significant amount of fatigue failures in welded joints are caused by torsion or combined tension-torsion in machinery components, estimating the potential threat of the inevitable residual stresses to structural integrity seems to be mandatory for the design of the future tubular lightweight welded components and structures. In this paper the residual stresses in cylindrical specimens with bead on tube welds out of S355J2H were determined experimentally by means of X-ray and neutron diffraction. Welding residual stresses as high as almost the yield strength of the base metal were observed in the weld bead. At the weld toes which are potentially fatigue crack initiation sites, however compressive residual stresses were present. After discussing brie...