Fatigue Properties of Stainless Steel Lap Joints. Spot Welded, Adhesive Bonded, Weldbonded, Laser Welded and Clinched Joints ff Stainless Steel Sheets-A Review of their Fatigue Properties

The type of joints covered are i) spot welded stainless to stainless and to galvanised carbon steel, ii) adhesive bonded stainless to stainless, iii) weld bonded stainless to stainless, iv) laser welded stainless to stainless and to galvanised carbon steel, v) clinched stainless to stainless steel.

The materials studied are AISI 301 and 304 stainless steel and high strength duplex 2101, 2304, 2205 and 2507 stainless steel. The thickness range is 0.7 - 4 mm. Fatigue properties in terms of Wöhler curves and Fatigue strength at 2*10⁶ cycles are compared between the different joining methods using load transfer capacity per unit length of the joints.

Fatigue strength is shown to be independent of matrix strength for spot welded joints. Spot welded, laser welded and clinched joints show similar fatigue properties for 1mm sheet joints. Adhesive bonded joints are five-fold stronger and the weld bonded joints show considerable scatter with a lower bound fatigue strength between spot welded and adhesive bonded joints.