Multiaxial fatigue strength assessment of welded joints using the Peak Stress Method - Part II: Application to structural steel joints

In Part I of the present manuscript, the Peak Stress Method (PSM) has been extended for the first time to assess the fatigue strength of welded joints in aluminium alloys subjected to in-phase as well as out-of-phase multiaxial loadings. A so-called equivalent peak stress has been defined on the basis of the averaged Strain Energy Density (SED) fatigue strength criterion. The equivalent peak stress can be used in principle to assess either weld toe and weld root fatigue failures in conjunction with an appropriate design curve for multiaxial fatigue loadings. In the present Part II of the paper, the Peak Stress Method is applied to assess the multiaxial fatigue strength of welded joints made of structural steels. The method has been validated against a bulk of experimental data taken from the available literature. The equivalent peak stress has shown to correlate with good approximation most of the analysed experimental data.