Issue34

C. Fischer et alii, Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 34 (2015) 99-108; DOI: 10.3221/IGF-ESIS.34.10 104 well as the apparent plate thickness (variant 3) have only minor influence on fatigue life since the stress concentration factor is smaller for bending loads (see e.g. [17]) and the apparent plate thickness is included in the notch effect by the ratio r ref /( h + t ) as defined in Fig. 1. The lives for the supported transverse attachment (3) and the additional longitudinal attachment (4) differ by about 27% in this comparison. The reason is the load-carrying grade of the fillet weld which is increased by the additional longitudinal attachment. The different load-carrying grades can be seen in the rise of the weld shape factor K W from 2.17 to 2.34. Its effect on life can be assessed for e.g. the variants 3 and 4 by raising the ratio of K W to the power of three: 3 ,3 ,3 ,4 ,4 ,1 ,3 1.41 p p W p p W N N K N N K                    (5) Here, the first term takes into account the increase with respect to the transverse attachment (1). The assessment agrees well with the computed relative lives of Tab. 2. Moreover, the complex structure reaches even longer life (variant 5 vs. 4), caused by an increased K W and the bending constraint. In general it can be stated that an increased weld shape factor K W results in a decreased crack growth due to the lower stress level in the plate. A SSESSMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL INFLUENCES Stress Gradient over Plate Thickness nalytical crack propagation analyses, in which the degree of bending  was varied, were carried out for a transverse attachment having the dimensions of variant 1. By starting with a semi-circular initial crack of a i = c i = 0.15 mm, the life was counted until the crack had reached a f = 3 mm. The following propagation phase was neglected since the aspect ratio was small and the increase in life, too. The crack growth increments d a and d c were again determined individually via the integration of the Paris law. The required SIF for the deepest point and for the surface point were taken from [1]. The stress magnification factors M k,c , referring to the surface point, were constant and correspond to the ones for a = 0.15 mm as suggested in [1]. The estimated lives were normalized with respect to the case of pure membrane loading (  = 0). Fig. 5 shows the crack depth as a function of the relative fatigue life for different degrees of bending. An increase of nearly 300% is found for  = 1, being in agreement with calculations in [14], and of about 30% for  = 0,315 as in the simulation. d = 0.0 d = 0.2 d = 0.4 d = 0.6 d = 0.8 d = 1.0 relative fatigue life 0 1 2 3 crack depth a [mm] 0 1 2 3 Figure 5 : Computed crack depth at transverse attachment with different degrees of bending  vs. relative fatigue life. 0,6 0,9 1,2 1,5 0 2 4 6 8 Quersteife mit Gradient unterstützte Quersteife normalized SIF crack depth a [mm] tran v rse attachment w. gradient (2) supported transv rse attachment (3) Figure 6 : Influence of the remaining cross section on the SIF. Apparent Plate Thickness The SIF at the deepest point depends among others on the relative crack depth a / t , the effect of which is described by means of the geometry function. If an additional plate is existent, the apparent plate thickness is increased. A