Peridynamic analysis of fatigue crack growth in fillet welded joints

Fatigue assessment is one of the significant factors to be considered for estimating design life of structures and structural reliability during operation. Especially, for welded structures, high stress concentration, residual stresses, weld geometry and weld quality make the structure more vulnerable to fatigue failures. Therefore, approaches that are more effective are required for estimating fatigue performances of welded structures. Existing classical methods to predict the crack propagation under cyclic loadings have some difficulties in treating complicated patterns of crack growth. However, peridynamic theory has advantages on dealing with discontinuities. In this study, a peridynamic fatigue model, which is a bond damage model of remaining life, is validated by considering ASTM E647 standard compact tension test for the crack growth. After validating the PD model, the fatigue performance of the fillet welded joint is presented by predicting the fatigue crack growth under cyclic loading conditions.