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FEM Study of Fatigue Response of 3‐Sheet Spot Welded Joints
Author(s) -
Collin Tania,
Melander Arne
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
steel research international
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.603
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1869-344X
pISSN - 1611-3683
DOI - 10.1002/srin.200606388
Subject(s) - spot welding , structural engineering , finite element method , materials science , welding , shear (geology) , dimensioning , shell (structure) , composite material , engineering , aerospace engineering
The commercial software used for predicting fatigue strength for load‐carrying spot welds in sheet structures, like car bodies, is mainly developed for two‐sheet joints. The purpose of this work was to study the fatigue properties of three‐sheet spot welded joints with a dimensioning method used in the automotive industry and to compare such computational results to those obtained from a more accurate method and to experimental data. Eleven three‐sheet, single spot welded specimens were studied using a structural stress approach, followed by shell element simulations, similar to those used in commercial software. These results were compared to calculations based on fine meshed solid element models. Fracture mechanics was used to evaluate the loading conditions at the spot welds. Comparison between the results from the different methods and experimental results for three shear loaded specimens, consisting of triple sheets, found in literature showed good correlation. The shell element method in shear loaded cases gives stress intensities within +35% to ‐5% of the solid element method results. In peel loaded cases the results differ up to ‐60%, an under‐estimation that leads to an increase of estimated fatigue life up to 65 times.