On the use of linear-elastic local stresses to design load-carrying fillet-welded steel joints against static loading

•The TCD is successful in estimating static strength of steel arc welded joints.•For steel arc welded joints, the PM critical distance is taken equal to 3.5 mm.•The inherent material strength is taken equal to 1.35 σUTSσUTS.•The TCD is recommended to be used by adopting safety factors larger than 1.25.

This paper uses local linear-elastic stresses to estimate the static strength of steel arc welded joints. The proposed design methodology was developed by taking as a starting point the fundamental concepts on which the Theory of Critical Distances (TCD) is based. The overall accuracy of the devised approach was checked against a number of experimental results taken from the literature and generated by testing a variety of welded geometries. Such a systematic validation exercise demonstrated that the TCD is highly accurate in estimating the static strength of arc welded joints irrespective of the complexity of the assessed welded detail’s geometry.