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Selective Laser Melting (SLM) process is an Additive Manufacturing (AM) technique that allows producing metallic parts of any kind of geometry with densities greater than 99.5%. Complex shapes lead however to notches with different radii of curvature that may reduce load bearing capacities. This work is aimed to assess the fatigue strength of Ti-6Al-4V blunt V-notched samples produced by SLM. Results were compared with those of the corresponding smooth samples and Environmental Scanning Electron Microscopy (ESEM) have been used to investigate the fracture surface of the broken samples in order to identify crack initiation points and fracture mechanisms. Finally, the strain energy density approach was used to evaluate the critical radius value. Despite the observed fatigue strength reduction induced by the notch, samples showed a sufficient low notch sensitivity that it was not possible to define a critical radius for the material analysed

In this work, a numerical study of laser beam welding of steel was performed. In particular, phase transformation effects were considered, which consist mainly of volume change and transformation plasticity. Thanks to the possibilities of numerical modelling, additional analyses were performed (a) without taking into account phase transformations and (b) considering only the transformation plasticity phenomenon.The aim of this study was to examine the influence of phase transformation on the residual stress induced by the welding process, by comparing the results obtained with the described differences in the analyses. Finally, the residual stress field computed by the three-dimensional (3D) model was compared with the one computed by a two-dimensional (2D) model in order to estimate the grade of reliability of the more efficient 2D analyses, also in the presence of phase transformations. It was found that both volume changes due to phase transformations and transformation plasticity have a great influence on the residual stress induced by the welding process. 2D numerical models can be used with good accuracy instead of 3D models, if the in-plane stresses are of primary interest. All analyses in this investigation were performed with the finite element code SYSWELD®.

Ahead of sharp V-notches, residual stresses, arising from the solidification of a fusion zone, have the same asymptotic nature of the stress field induced by mechanical loads. This stress field significantly affects the engineering properties of structural components, notably fatigue life and corrosion resistance of welded joints. Tensile residual stresses can reduce the fatigue strength of welded joints particularly in the high-cycle regime, where no stress redistribution due to local plasticity phenomena is expected to be present. The aim of this work is to analyse, by means of the numerical simulation, the residual stress redistribution near a V-notch tip induced by cyclic loads and to propose a method, based on the local strain energy approach, for the fatigue resistance estimation of pre-stressed components. The numerical solutions of the problem were carried out under the hypothesis of generalized plane strain conditions by means of SYSWELD and SYSTUS codes

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