| In this study, Stress Intensity Factors are calculated for cracks located at the toe of a fillet weld subjected to residual stresses due to the welding. The welding model used in this study is based on Longitudinal stiffener test specimens. The meshes generated for these models were obtained from the commercial code HYPERMESH. The welding heat transfer simulation and calculation of the welding residual stresses used the explicit FE commercial code SYSWELD. The residual stresses obtained from the welding simulations for the uncracked configuration were applied as an initial pressure on the crack surface in the subsequent fracture mechanics analyses with cracks. The calculation of Stress Intensity Factors in the cracked configuration utilize a specialized finite element program, FRAC2D, which was developed at Lehigh University. For the results in this study, two different meshes and two different materials are considered and the value of the Stress Intensity Factors, for different crack lengths are calculated during the fracture mechanics analyses. |
