Fatigue Assessment of Welding Seams and Spot Joints Based on FEA

An automated assessment of structures with welding seams or spot joints is presented. Based on guidelines and with the help of software-coded procedures, the Finite Element model is conventionally build up including welding seams and spot joints. After having determined the stresses by linear or geometric nonlinear Finite Element analyses (FEA), the stresses are post-processed by a software package taking into account the special properties of the welding seams and the spot joints as defined in the FE-model. With it, the fatigue life, in terms of safety factor or damage distributions, can be evaluated fast and efficiently and may be displayed on the FE-structure. Computationally optimized welded or spot-jointed structures become feasible with this software package, leading to development time and cost reductions due to minimizing testing expenditures.