Improving fatigue strength of welded 1300Â MPa yield strength steel using HFMI treatment or LTT fillers

Fatigue improvement techniques are widely used to increase fatigue strength of welded high strength steels. In this paper high frequency mechanical impact (HFMI) and a Low Transformation Temperature (LTT) filler material were employed to investigate the effect on fatigue strength of welded 1300 MPa yield strength steel. Fatigue testing was done under fully reversed, constant amplitude bending load on T-joint samples. Fatigue strength of LTT welds was the same as for welds produced using a conventional filler material. However, HFMI treatment increased the mean fatigue strength of conventional welds about 26% and of LTT welds about 13%. Similar distributions of residual stresses and almost the same weld toe radii were observed for welds produced using LTT and conventional consumables. HFMI increased the weld toe radius slightly and produced a more uniform geometry along the treated weld toes. Relatively large compressive residual stresses, adjacent to the weld toe were produced and the surface hardness was increased in the treated region for conventional welds after HFMI. For this specific combination of weld geometry, steel strength and loading conditions HFMI treatment gave higher fatigue strength than LTT consumables.