초록
It is well known that a considerable amount of scatter is shown in experimental results relating to fatigue crack growth even under identical and constant amplitude cyclic loading conditions. Moreover, flux cored arc welding (FCAW) is a common method used to join thick plates such as the structural members of large scale offshore structures and very large container ships. The objective of this study was to investigate the macro- and microscopic observations of the fatigue crack growth (FCG) behavior of the FCAWed API 2W Gr. 50 steel joints typically applied for offshore structures. In order to clearly understand the randomness of the fatigue crack growth behavior in the materials of three different zones, the weld metal (WM), heat affected zone (HAZ), and base metal (BM), experimental fatigue crack growth tests for each of five specimens were performed on ASTM standard compact tension (CT) specimens under constant amplitude cyclic loading. Special focus was placed on the fatigued fracture surfaces. As a result, a different behavior was observed at the macro-level, depending on the type of material property: BM, HAZ, or WM. The variability in the fatigue crack growth rate for WM was higher than that of BM and HAZ.