Abstract
The objective of this study is to examine fatigue strength of the welded details. In order to attain the goal of this study, the bending fatigue tests was performed for four kinds of welded details used in steel bridges, such as in-plane gusset, out-of-plane gusset, cruciform, and cover plate. The effect of the length of welded attachment on fatigue strength was greater in out-of-plane gusset than in in-plane gusset. The fatigue strength of welded details with short attachment was superior to that with long attachment. Fatigue strength of welded details with transversely loaded welds was lower than that with longitudinally loaded welds, and those results were not satisfied with AASHTO specifications. For the fatigue strength of cover plate, cover plate with rectangular section was superior to that with tapered section. It was found that the fatigue crack initiates at the points of stress concentration which are the boundary between the base metal and the bead of weld in the part of the longitudinal edge of attachment, and propagates first along the boundary and along the perpendicular to the direction of the principle stress in the base metal of welded tip.