Page 23 - Biaxial Multiaxial Fatigue and Fracture

8 K. DANG VAN, A. BIGNONNET AND JL. FAYARD

appropriated failure criterion, is the one that allows the interpretation of all the experimental
results with the minimum scatter. Thus, the size of the elements at the intersection area has
been suitably defined such that the geometrical stress is calculated at the weld toe and the weld
root, precisely where cracks commonly appear, without interpolation at nodes (see Fig. 2). The
same methodology can also be applied to any welded joint such as, for example, a thick sheet
welded on a solid component as shown in Fig. 3.

Fig. 2. Meshing rules for continuous arc-welded joints. The geometry on the left hand side is
associated to the thin shell modelling on the right hand side : (a) for fillet weld; (b) for overlap
welded joint.