Experimental Investigation of Fatigue of Thin-Walled Welded Structures of Commercial Vehicle Frames

Abstract

The fatigue behavior of bus frame components consisting of thin-walled tube beams joined together by fillet welding has been investigated. Numerical analysis by means of finite elements and experimental stress analysis by means of strain gages explored the failure-critical locations at the weld toe. In addition, a proposal for finite element modeling in particular of the welded area, and evaluation of hot spot stresses to be used for fatigue life calculations of such thin-walled structures has been developed. The calculation results have been verified based on experimentally determined fatigue lives of the components under constant amplitude loading. A satisfactory agreement between experimental and theoretical results has been observed.