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In order to ensure high weld qualities and structural integrity of engineering structures, it is crucial to detect areas of high stress concentrations along weld seams. Traditional inspection methods rely on visual inspection and manual weld geometry measurements. Recent advances in the field of automated measurement techniques allow virtually unrestricted numbers of inspections by laser measurements of weld profiles; however, in order to compare weld qualities of different welding processes and manufacturers, a deeper understanding of statistical distributions of stress concentrations along weld seams is required. Hence, this study presents an approach to statistically characterize different types of butt joint weld seams. For this purpose, an artificial neural network is created from 945 finite element simulations to determine stress concentration factors at butt joints. Besides higher quality of predictions compared to empirical estimation functions, the new approach can directly be applied to all types welded structures, including arc- and laser-welded butt joints, and coupled with all types of 3D-measurement devices. Furthermore, sheet thickness ranging from 1 mm to 100 mm can be assessed.

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Welded joints have a large variation of their geometry and is one important reason for the comparable large scatter regarding their fatigue life. This study presents and tests an approach for the probabilistic fatigue assessment of welded joints based on their individual local geometry. This approach is adopted from the IBESS research cluster and combined with previous work regarding the evaluation of geometrical parameters from 3D-surface scans. The fatigue life was calculated based on 26 fatigue test series. In this study the fatigue strength calculated by the IBESS approach tended to be overestimated in some cases that is mainly related to the underestimation of the scatter range of the simulated fatigue tests according to the real results. Geometrical parameters were varied in the IBESS calculations and showed that no significant influence on the calculated fatigue strength was determined for weld toe radii > 2 mm and flank angle > 30°.