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The fatigue behaviour of weld ends, especially in thin sheet structures under multi-axial load conditions, has not yet been explored. A research project was initiated to gain more information on this topic which is of special interest to the automotive industry. In the present study fatigue tests on steel tube-tube joints were conducted. Notch stresses were calculated using an idealised weld end model. A numerical method combining the geometrical and statistical size effect into an integrated approach was used in order to take size effects into consideration. The out-of-phase effects on fatigue strength was covered using a multi-axial criterion. We propose a new approach combining the applied multi-axial criterion with the micro-support effect. That leads to a satisfactorily small scatter range of experimentally obtained fatigue lives around the S-N curve from regression analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Weld start and end points are fatigue failure sensitive locations. Their fatigue behaviour especially in thin sheet structures under multiaxial load conditions is not sufficiently explored so far. Therefore, a research project was initiated to increase the knowledge concerning this topic, which is of special interest in the automotive industry. In the present study, fatigue tests on welded joints were conducted. In the numerical part of the study, notch stresses were calculated with an idealised weld end model. A numerical method which combines the geometrical and statistical size effect to an integrated approach was used, in order to consider the size effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]