Fatigue and Fracture of Weldments: The IBESS Approach for the Determination of the Fatigue Life and Strength of Weldments by Fracture Mechanics Analysis

This book provides a comprehensive and thorough guide to those readers who are lost in the often-confusing context of weld fatigue. It presents straightforward information on the fracture mechanics and material background of weld fatigue, starting with fatigue crack initiation and short cracks, before moving on to long cracks, crack closure, crack growth and threshold, residual stress, stress concentration, the stress intensity factor, J-integral, multiple cracks, weld geometries and defects, microstructural parameters including HAZ, and cyclic stress-strain behavior. The book treats all of these essential and mutually interacting parameters using a unique form of analysis.

Prof. Dr Uwe Zerbst, Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM), Berlin, Germany. The acronym IBESS stands for “Integrale Bruchmechanische Ermittlung der Schwingfestigkeit von Schweißverbindungen“ which, translated from German, means „Integral fracture mechanics determination of the fatigue strength of welds”. The method introduced in this study is the outcome of a German research cluster in which eight partners were involved. A list of them is found at the end of this study. The IBESS method is characterized by a number of partially novel aspects and elements of fracture mechanics applied to the evaluation of fatigue strength of welds.