Effect of TID-dressing on Fatigue Life Stress Concentration Factor in St37-2Butt Weldments

Abstract

The researchers have shown that there are cracks in the toe weld and they have an important role in the welding failure. The elimination of these shortcomings and the improvement of the fatigue life have always been a concern for the industrial designers. One method of improving the fatigue life of the welded joint at its geometry branch is to remelt the toe region of the steel weldments using the Tungsten Inert Gas (TIG) method or TIG-dressing. This method affects the material structure, hardness, stress coefficient and welding shape. In this study, the effectiveness of this method on fatigue and stress concentration at the weld toe was investigated. The experimental results showed that the toe weld form was changed by TIG – dressing and thus increased the radius and decreased the toe weld's angle, so that the stress was reduced by TIG – dressing. Also, the fatigue tests showed that the fatigue life increased by an average of approximately 30 percent. Finally, the stress concentration factors were obtained using ABAQUS finite element analysis. The amount of stress concentration factors in weldments before and after TIG – dressing were respectively achieved to be 2.4 and 1.3.