Stress concentration coefficients of optimized cope-hole welded detail

Abstract

The fatigue performance of optimized welded detail has been investigated by fatigue experiments of three welded specimens under different loadings. In addition, local finite element models of this welded detail were established using finite element software ANSYS. The influences of different factors such as plate thickness, plate gap and initial geometric imperfections on the stress concentration coefficient (SCC) were discussed. The experimental results indicate that the fatigue life of three specimens for this welded detail is 736,000, 1,044,200 and 1,920,300 times, respectively. The web thickness, the filler plate thickness and the initial geometric imperfection have relatively less effect on the SCCs of this welded detail. However, cope-hole radius is influential on the SCCs of the web and the weld. The SCC of weld is significantly affected by the weld size and plate gap, but the SCCs of other parts of the welded detail are hardly affected by the plate gap.