Abstract
Fatigue strength assessments with two types of load carrying fillet weldment under out-of-plane bending load have been carried out by using both hot spot stress and structural stress methods. In this study, a derivation for the structural stress method using shell element models is discussed in detail. Finite element analysis using shell element models have been performed for the assessment of fatigue strength. As a result of the fatigue strength evaluation for load carrying transverse fillet weldment, hot spot stress method is found to be consistent with structural stress method and measurement. Hot spot stress, however, estimated for the load carrying longitudinal fillet weldment exhibit large variation with respect to mesh size and element type while the calculated structural stress for the longitudinal fillet weldment is relatively independent of mesh size. On the other hand, drawbacks and doubts associated with applying the structural stress method such as the guidance of virtual node method have been discussed.
