With the rapid development of urban rail transit, metro vehicles have become preferred choices for urban transportation. It is important to accurately evaluate the fatigue strength of a car body to ensure subway safety. A new method based on multiaxial stress criteria and cumulative fatigue damage theory was proposed for the fatigue strength assessment of welded joints of an aluminium alloy head car body subjected to variable cyclic loads. A local coordinate system was established, according to the geometrical characteristics of the weld. Local stresses perpendicular and parallel to the weld seam were obtained to calculate the stress ratio, stress range, and allowable stress value corresponding to the stress component. Then, the fatigue strength utilization of the joints was estimated to determine whether the fatigue strength of the weld met the design requirements. Moreover, the estimated fatigue life of the car body was predicted with cumulative fatigue damage theory. This method considers both the material utilization degree in multiple stress states and the estimated body fatigue life of the car body. The research results provide a reference and a more comprehensive guarantee for the fatigue strength evaluation of a subway car body’s welded structure to ensure vehicle safety.

With the continuous development of the subway, the demand for its safety and stability is getting higher and higher. It is of great significance to accurately evaluate the fatigue life of the carbody to ensure the subway's safe operation. In this paper, the finite element model of a subway head carbody was established, and the fatigue strength of the welded structure on the carbody was evaluated based on Multi-axial stress. The local coordinate system was defined according to the geometrical characteristics of the welds. Local stresses perpendicular and parallel to the weld seam were obtained to calculate the stress ratio, stress range, and allowable stress value corresponding to the stress component. According to the joint fatigue resistance, the components of the degree of utilization and comprehensive degree of utilization are calculated to evaluate the structural fatigue strength under the survival rate of 97.5% and load cycles of 10 7 . The evaluation of the fatigue strength of the pivotal weld joints shows that the fatigue strength of the aluminum alloy carbody meets the design requirements, the weld of the carbody has a strong ability to resist fatigue damage. The fatigue strength of the weld is mainly affected by the normal stress component, while the shear stress has little effect on the fatigue strength of the structure. In addition, compared with the filleted weld joint and the butt-welded joint, the normal stress parallels to and perpendicular to the weld direction and shear stress have the greatest effect on the lap-welded joint. Meanwhile, the comprehensive degree of utilization of the lap-welded joint is the largest at 0.49. The introduction of multi-axial stress for the fatigue strength evaluation is beneficial when considering the material utilization degree in multiple structural directions. This research results provide a reference for fatigue strength evaluation of subway carbody's welded structure.

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