Residual Stress Effects on Fatigue Crack Growth from a T-Butt Weld Toe

A350 grade black mild steel is one of the most widely used structural materials in the world, being commonly found in buildings, bridges and offshore structures.Welding is commonly used to join two plates of structural steel and this often takes the form of a T-butt.In addition, other more complex geometrical joints are often simplified for stress analysis purposes by approximating them as 2-D T-butt plate models (e.g. skewed T-joints, cruciform welded joints, tubular welded joints, pipe–plate joints, etc.).However, all such welds are potentially susceptible to fatigue crack initiation and slow but accelerating growth arising as a result of fluctuating service loads, often eventually resulting in fast fracture.