FRACTURE MECHANICS ANALYSIS OF STEEL CONNECTIONS UNDER COMBINED ACTIONS

摘要

In this paper an analytical method is presented for estimating the fatigue crack growth and fatigue life of steel connections under combined actions. The steel connections are made of two steel plates joined together by single-sided girth welds. The combined actions that applied on the connections include a set of constant amplitude cyclic mode I load and a set of perpendicular static load. The analytical model is developed on the basis of the method of linear elastic fracture mechanics. This model is verified by the experimental results. The comparison between the theoretical and experimental results discloses that the analytical method is able to predict the fatigue crack growth life with acceptable engineering accuracy.