Fatigue crack growth resistance of S690QL and S960M high strength steels welded joints

Abstract

The research work aimed to determine the fatigue crack growth resistance of S690QL and S960M base materials and their GMAW welded joints. Welding experiments were performed on 15 mm thick plates, where symmetric X-groove multipass welds were made. Welding carriage and a monitoring system were used during the tests. The specimens were cut parallel and perpendicular to the characteristic directions of the materials and the welded joints; therefore the propagating cracks represent the different possible locations of the real cracks in the structural elements. With the selected values of the experimental results a statistical method can be proposed for determination of the fatigue crack growth resistance.