International Journal of Fatigue 28 (2006) 547553 www.elsevier.

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Life fatigue estimation of welding seams based on notch strains

G. Kepplinger *, F. Ruprechter, G. Stangl, A. Dunst, M. Hofer
MAGNA STEYR Fahrzeugtechnik AG&CoKG, Liebenauer Hauptstr. 317, A-8041 Graz, Austria Received 21 March 2005; received in revised form 2 June 2005; accepted 7 June 2005 Available online 15 December 2005

Abstract When based on structural stress acting on shell elements, the stress simulation for welding seams on thin sheets provides no sufcient correlation with damages occurring during real component tests under operational load. The calculation technique on hand is based on the analysis of the operational strength behavior of crucial positions such as toe notches and root notches. The notches are ctitiously rounded with radii of 0.05 mm. The notch root stress reduced by the support effect (especially the microstructural support effect) has proved to be an appropriate stress criterion. In order to verify the universality of the method for other welding seam geometries as well, the fatigue strength behavior of H-specimen was not only simulated for MAG-welding seams but also for laser welding seams and spot welding. The fatigue life estimation was carried out in accordance with the critical plane method and by using the PSWTstress-cycle curve. The Miner rule was used as hypothesis of damage accumulation. q 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Welding seam; Fictitious notch root; Microstructural support effect; Operational strength; Fatigue life estimation

1. Introduction The crucial factor when simulating the fatigue behavior of welded structures is the correct comprehension of the stress situation. For FE-analyses, car body and chassis components made of sheet metal are modeled by means of shell elements with edge lengths from 5 up to 15 mm. Despite of the narrow limits for modeling quality, the stress results can vary considerably due to the high stress gradientsabove all vertical to the welding seamand because of incompatible shape functions of the shell elements (e.g. T-joints). Therefore, structural stresses taken directly from an FE-analysis can only be used within certain limits for evaluating welding seam stresses. Furthermore, the geometrical design of the welding seam cannot be considered to a sufcient degree. The tight development schedule and the huge amount of design variants normally do not allow analyses of critical areas of components by means of FE-detail models. Therefore, automatically generated FE-meshes capable mainly of stiffness analyses should form the basis for stress analyses as well. This concept for fatigue life estimation of welding seams is mainly
* Corresponding author. Tel.: C43 316 404 2973; fax: C43 316 404 2008. E-mail address: gerhard.kepplinger@magnasteyr.com (G. Kepplinger).

based on an improved simulation of the stress situation within the welding joint and was veried in the course of a diploma work [1].

2. Simulation model The main parameters, which affect the fatigue behavior of welding seams, are the load situation, the geometric realization of the welding seam, the welding procedure, as well as the material behavior. In literature many SN curves of steel components joined with welding seams show the dominating effect of the local stress situation for the endurable load cycles of the joints. The stresses are mainly inuenced by the load situation and the geometry. One has to bear in mind that deviations in the production procedure will also affect the geometry of the welding seams, e.g. bigger ank angles of the welding seam or gaps between joined parts due to non-parallel anges of the joined components, result in sharper notches and therefore give lower resistible loads. On the other hand, practical reasons in the development process of automotive components do not allow closer investigations on the inuence of the quality of the welding process for structural durability simulations. Just minimum standards of the joints can be supposed and must be considered in the denition of the cross section of the welding geometry. Finally, the material behavior of welded steel structures has rather little inuence on

0142-1123/$ - see front matter q 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijfatigue.2005.06.049

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the components resistible loads in comparison with the geometry and load situation. To obtain an appropriate basis for the subsequent operational strength simulation, the joint stiffness of the welding seam in the shell model must be correctly simulated rst. On account of these requirements, the model scheme for welding seams was dened according to Fig. 1. A welding seam section is represented by a so-called joining shell element (thickness tv), which actually connects the components. The element edges in the direction of the welding seam are adjoined by the elements of the heat-affected zone (HAZ), which are assigned directly to the welded components. By dening the dimensions and the physical properties of the joining shell accurately, the stiffness can be simulated sufciently and without any shift of the load path within the welded structures. In the modeling of a T-joint the angle between the joining shell and the continuous sheet is specied as half of the angle between the continuous sheet and the joining sheet in order to prevent doubtful grid point forces at the joint due to the incompatibility of the element shape functions. Furthermore, good element quality but also constant element length (5 10 mm, dependent on the simulation purpose of the model) in the heat affected zone (HAZ) as well as avoiding triangles for the joining shell elements and the elements of the HAZ are essential. The thickness of the joining shell is dened as the minimum thickness of the connected sheets. The usage of state of the art FE-Preprocessors in the modeling helps to fulll these requirements. Up to now the main types of joints can be represented in the shell model using joint shells and elements marked as heataffected zone, which can be automatically detected by the developed computer program. In addition to the T-joint with single llet weld, also the T-joint with double llet weld, the overlap joint, the butt joint, the angle joint as well as the I-joint are supported. 2.1. Stress criterion: structural stress In real automotive components creating FE-mesh of good quality is very cost and time consuming. Even on very carefully created models it is hardly impossible to have a nearly

homogeneous element distribution, e.g. for locations where curved brackets are joined with curved components. The validation of different design variants very often needs varying element lengths and therefore structural stress results will vary also. These structural stress results from the FE-solver should not be adopted directly in order to keep the effects of the various mesh types of FE-models at a minimum. There are numerous improved calculation models for structural stresses three of them are described in the following. Calculation of the stress results at the transition of the HAZelements with the joining shell is based on the grid point forces of the joining shell. This improves the quality for the structural stress of each section face of the welding seam (Z each HAZ-shell). Based on grid point forces, it is possible to calculate structural stresses. From any single joining shell element the acting forces from all neighboring elements can be grouped to forces acting normal to a cross section face. This has to be done by considering also different element geometries and areas of the elements. The result is a force normal to the welding line and a moment in the welding line direction for any section face. From this, the membrane stress and the bending stress can be determined. The superposition of these stress components gives the normal stresses on bottom side and on top side of shell elements. The main advantage of this procedure is a very robust result regarding different mesh densities especially varying element lengths normal to the welding lines. The next approach is one step further: again the load calculation is based on the grid point forces, the reference cross section is adapted due to the geometry of the welding seam. This allows of considering geometrical attributes of the welding seam, such as root penetration, already with corrected structural stresses. Despite of these improvements regarding the variation of the elements geometry and minimum thickness of the welding seam, the load path within the cross section of the welding seams and the resulting stress concentrations at toe notches and root notches cannot be determined. Furthermore, for damage calculation specic material properties based on structural stresses for the HAZ have to be found from test series. Unfortunately, the permissible values differ from one joint type in combination with a certain welding seam type to another one, as can be seen in catalogues for notch classes from technical standards. A simulation method based on structural stresses in combination with stress concentration factors is also well known. The disadvantage, however, is the fact that a concentration factor only applies to one single load case at an exactly dened location. For example, on a single welding seam of T-joint type with three section faces and with bending and membrane load for each of these faces at least six stress concentration factors have to be determined. The following superposition of the resulting stresses (already multiplied by the stress concentration factors) can

Fig. 1. Stiffness model T-joint, single llet weld.

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Fig. 2. Substitutional welding notch, single llet weld.

only be superposed approximately. For the general varying load cases with varying principal stress directions and slight shifts of the critical positions within the notches, it is not possible to generate a valid stresstime history for a welding notch.

2.2. Stress criterion: notch root stress (2D-notch) A detailed specication of the welding seam geometry in the FE-model is absolutely essential to describe the stress situation realistically. A model was developed and programmed as follows: based on the shell model of the structure, the grid point forces occurring at the welding seam (joining shell element) are determined. These forces act on nely discretized parameter models of 2D-welding seam notches from a database, which results in the corresponding notch root stresses (Fig. 2). In the computer program, rst the type of the joint is automatically identied based on the joining shell and

the adjacent elements of the heat-affected zone. Furthermore, the joint is classied by the angle between the joint sheet and the continuous sheet as well as by the thickness of the connected sheets. In the following, the actual joint is searched for in the database of nely discretized shell models. The database holds the notch root stresses at all points of interest in the notches of the joint for all unit load cases of the parameter model. In addition, also the relative stress gradients at the points of interest in the notches are stored in order to account for the effect of microstructural support. The stress gradient is considered in tangential and in normal direction with respect to the contour of the parameter model, since a plane state of strain is present in the weld and there is no gradient in longitudinal direction of the weld. In shell models of real type automotive structures up to 10,000 welding segments have to be classied by the joint type, the angle and the sheet thickness. In order to give the user the possibility to check the results of the identication of the weldings a simplied contour line of the parameter model is also included in the database. A local coordinate system is set up for all segments of the weld and the contour line is transformed from the local coordinate system to the global coordinate system. The transformed contours can be exported as a separate model in NASTRAN Bulk Data format. Fig. 3 shows the original model and the contours of the corresponding parameter models of the database. Furthermore, a le is written which includes all segments where a parameter model is not available in the database yet. Based on this information, the database of the seam weld parameter models can be extended. For dealing with the derived notch root stresses a model characterized by a signicant notch geometry in combination with a stress criterion was searched for, which provides a good correlation of the operational strength analysis and the failure behavior of welding seams during rig tests. The basis was already found by Radaj who applied this method in combination with notch root stress models with ctitious notch radii of 1 mm on welded lower strength steels

Fig. 3. Contours of the parameter models displayed in the original shell model.

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Legend for classification of specimen: u-v-v-w-x-y-z (e.g. SQ-L-D-1-1-FeP04-V-0,1) digit -uKSQdigits -v-vstress type ... H-specimen, cross tension / peel tension ... H-specimen, shear tension transverse joint method

-P-10*5- ... resistance spot welding, 10 spot welds, 5mm -L-D-M-D... laser beam welding, continous seam ... MAG welding, continous seam

-M-3*40- ... MAG welding, discontinous seam (3x40mm) digit -w-1-1digit -x-Vdigit -y-DC04digit -z-0,1--1sheet thickness combination ... 1mm sheet thickness each source of data ... rig test data material ... FeP04 (=DC04, =St14) stress ratio ... R = 0.1 ... R = -1
Fig. 4. Legend for test series.

[2]. The ctitious notch radius results in: rf Z r C sr Z 0 mm C 2:5 ! 0:4 mm Z 1 mm with r actual notch radius (0 mm; worst case) s multiaxiality coefcient (2.5; for notched bars according to von Mises hypothesis) r* substitute microstructural length (0.4 mm; initial crack in the cast structure of lower strength steel in weld toe or weld root) Application of this ctitious notch on thin sheets with a thickness of about 1 mm would lead to unacceptable, relative reductions of the welding seam cross sections and hence makes
100.000

(1)

10.000

1.000
K-M-D-1-1-FeP04-V-0,1 K-M-3*40-1-1-FeP04-V-0,1 K-L-D-1-1-FeP04-V-0,1 K-P-10*5-1-1-FeP04-V-0,1 SQ-M-D-1-1-FeP04-V--1 SQ-M-3*40-1-1-FeP04-V-0,1 SQ-L-D-1-1-FeP04-V-0,1 SQ-P-10*5-1-1-FeP04-V-0,1

100 1,E+04

1,E+05 1,E+06 load cycles N

Fig. 5. Load SN curve of test series.

1,E+07

direct use impossible. The more recent method applying a ctitious notch radius of 0.05 mm was developed for spot welds [3]. Eibl and Sonsino successfully applied this method to laser-welded seams [4]. For discretization of the FE-structure, the recommendations of [5] were used. The direct notch root is an edge layer consisting of at least 10 element rows with elements as quadratic as possible, and quadratic shape functions. Along a rounded notch root curve with an angle of 908, at least 18 elements are recommended. In this work, the test results of MAG-welded H-specimen peel tension and shear tension, material St14 (DC04), sheet thickness 1 mmwere used for validating this method [6], Fig. 4. The load SN curve of the tests is shown in Fig. 5. For verifying the validity of this method for considerably changed welding geometries, fatigue strength tests for laser-welded and spot-welded specimen have been simulated with corresponding notch models, too. The geometric notch for laser welded and MAG welded H-specimen is of 2D-type, for the spot welded specimen the notch is three-dimensional around the welding nugget (Fig. 6). Because of constant load application along the clamps of the H-specimen for welding seams only a 2D section needs to be modeled. Investigations on three-dimensional models for MAG-welded seams revealed, that for sheets with thickness of about 1 mm a 2D strain state is given when the length of the welding seams is about 20 mm or more. At rst, the stress distributions of the 2D-welding seam models and the 3D spot welds have been determined for a reference load of 1000 N with linear static FEM-calculations. Due to the assumed linear relation between load and stress, the critical notch root stress SN curves can be determined in the critical notch root by scaling the endurable loads from the

load amplitude [N]

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Fig. 6. FEM-models for the specimen of the test series.

above load SN curves with the factors gained from the FEM analysis (Fig. 7). Apart from the simulated results of the H-specimen, the results for endurable notch root stresses gained from [4] are also shown. The test results of the H-specimen show the highest notch root stresses at the spot-welded shear tension specimen (SQP), the laser-welded structures show the lowest stresses. Compared to the publication of Eibl and Sonsino, these notch root stresses are too low for the laser welds. Except for the spot-weld H-specimen under shear tension, all rig test data lie within or relatively close to the variation range of Eibl and Sonsino, which was based exclusively on laser-welded structures. The calculated stress results, however, only apply to the linear-elastic behavior of the specimen even in the highly stressed area around the notch radii. Of course, in real life condition a reduction of the high linear elastic stress values (about 1000 MPa) of the notches with

radius of 0.05 mm due to effects of structural support of the neighboring regions has to be expected. Because of that in the next step the linear-elastically determined notch root stresses are reduced by the microstructural support effect. According to Niemann-Petersen, the characteristic value n for the microstructural support is dened (for tensile-compressiveload) as: p n Z 1 C r c (2) with r* substitute microstructural length c* relative stress gradient. The calculated values n for the tested specimen are shown in Fig. 8. In case of such sharp notches the values for the microstructural support depend mainly on the notch radius (here: for all models the same) and the load path.

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v. Mises eq. notch stress amplitude [MPa]

K-M-D-1-1-FeP04-V-0,1 K-M-3*40-1-1-FeP04-V-0,1 K-L-D-1-1-FeP04-V-0,1 K-P-10*5-1-1-FeP04-V-0,1 Eibl/Sonsino-L-D--DC04--V-0 Eibl/Sonsino-L-D-10%---V-0

SQ-M-D-1-1-FeP04-V--1 SQ-M-3*40-1-1-FeP04-V-0,1 SQ-L-D-1-1-FeP04-V-0,1 SQ-P-10*5-1-1-FeP04-V-0,1 Eibl/Sonsino-L-D-90%---V-0

v. Mises eq. notch stress amplitude [MPa] reduced by micro support effect

100.000

10.000
K-M-D-1-1-FeP04-V-0,1 K-M-3*40-1-1-FeP04-V-0,1 K-L-D-1-1-FeP04-V-0,1 K-P-10*5-1-1-FeP04-V-0,1 Eibl/Sonsino-L-D--DC04--V-0 Eibl/Sonsino-L-D-10%---V-0 SQ-M-D-1-1-FeP04-V--1 SQ-M-3*40-1-1-FeP04-V-0,1 SQ-L-D-1-1-FeP04-V-0,1 SQ-P-10*5-1-1-FeP04-V-0,1 Eibl/Sonsino-L-D-90%---V-0

10.000

1.000

1.000

100

100 1,E+04

1,E+05

1,E+06

1,E+07

10 1,E+04

1,E+05

1,E+06

1,E+07

load cycles N
Fig. 7. Notch stress SN curve of test series.

load cycles N
Fig. 9. reduced (by microstructural support) notch strees SN curve from test series.

Consequently, the shear-tension stressed spot weld receives the biggest microstructural support effect, but all values are within 10%. By regarding the microstructural support effect a reduced notch root stress SN curve results (Fig. 9). By including the microstructural support effect, the correlation between the SN curves improves, above all the SN curve for the spot weld specimen under shear tension comes closer to the other curves. However, there still are systematic deviations. Nevertheless within one and the same joining technique, variations between the SN curves are small and the reduced notch root stress can be used as a relevant stress criterion. It should be possible to eliminate deviations caused by uncertain geometry data of the welded joints from test series by means of further tests. 2.3. Damage calculation based on notch root stresses with strain SN curve [7] Finally, the actual damage calculations for the specimen on hand are carried out. The time histories of the notch root
5.0
MAG laser spot weld

4.8 micro support effect n [-]

4.6

4.4

4.2

4.0

SQ

Fig. 8. Microstructural support n for H-specimen for cross tension (K) and shear tension (SQ).

stresses at the points of interest in the notches of a specic joint are calculated by superposition as follows: First, the grid point forces of the connecting nodes between the joint shell and the adjacent elements of the heat-affected zone for the basic load cases of the shell model are transformed into the local coordinate of the actual weld segment. This gives the superposition factors of the unit load cases of the parameter model for each basic load case of the shell model, which are stored in memory for each segment. At a time step the stored superposition factors for the segment are superposed with respect to the given loadtime histories of the shell model. This results in a vector of superposition factors for the unit load cases of the parameter model for each time step. The notch root stresses of the points of interest in the notches are read in from the database and are superposed according to this vector at each time step. Rainow-counting with regard to mean stress and stress amplitude is made for the (reduced by microstructural support effect) stresstime histories at the points of interest in the notches. The effect of microstructural effect is taken into account during the superposition: When performing the superposition of the unit load cases of the parameter model, the characteristic value n in Eq. (2) is calculated with the substitute microstructural length r* of the material of the actual weld segment and the relative stress gradient stored for all point of interest in the notches and for all unit load case of the parameter model. The notch root stress of the unit load case is then reduced by the characteristic value n at each point of interest in the notches. The macrostructural support effect caused by local plastication in case of load cycles with mean stresses is taken into consideration according to the Neuber hyperbola. In literature, several approximations to the fatigue strength curve can be found. The approximations are functions of material parameters as the fatigue limit for alternating stress, the fatigue limit for pulsating stress, the breaking strength, the yield limit and the ultimate compressive strength. In the application, the formula according to Troost-El Magd has been identied as a

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100,0
MAG M-D Laser L-D Spot Weld P-10*5
14,2

74,0

damage D [-]

10,0

7,1

8,1

2,6 2,0

2,2

1,0

1,0

K__1.E4

K__1.E6
0,8

SQ_1.E4
0,4

SQ_1.E6

0,2

0,1

0,1

Fig. 10. Damage results from simulation of H-specimen (K and SQ) for NZ104 and 106.

useful approximation. In accordance with this approximation to the fatigue strength curve and the similarity approach for curves of constant service life, all load cycles are transformed into purely alternating load cycles. By means of the stress amplitudes, the data are evaluated on the basis of the damage parameter curve (here: PSWT), the latter being the result of the cyclic strain SN curve and the cyclic stress strain diagram. In accordance with the Miner rule, the damage contributions of the single load cycle result in the cumulative damage. Regarding the above-mentioned H-specimen, the damage values 104 and 106 load cycles were calculated for a substitute microstructural length of 0.25 mm (St14), see Fig. 10. The continuous MAG-seams (M-D) showed the best correlation (damages 0.82.6). The results of the damage calculation for test series H-specimen with shear tension and continuous MAG-welding seams (SQ-M-D), which was the only one tested for RZK1, were similar to the other damage values of the MAG-specimen (note: for alternating load cycles there is no macrostructural support). 3. Conclusions The method applying a substitutional notch of 0.05 mm is an excellent compromise between a very small, articial reduction of the welding seams cross section and a very good

simulation of the notch with reasonable model sizes. Despite of the deviations of the permissible notch stress values of welded H-specimen, this method is also appropriate for thin sheets of a vehicle. With additional test data of different welding methods and different sheet thickness combinations, a common stress criterion applicable to all relevant welding methods in chassis and body can be achieved. This would allow of a direct comparison of MAG seam, laser seam and spot weld. The bestpossible welding technique regarding design and manufacturing can be directly compared to the other procedures with regard to operational strength. By not taking the microstructural support into consideration for the ctitious substitutional notch, but by separately calculating the actually occurring stress gradients, FE-notch root stress models with the same geometry can be used for different materials (lower strength steels, high strength steels, aluminum sheets). For MAGNA STEYRs program-aided damage calculation for real components, this method provided a considerably more realistic description of the actual stress situation, while the model size remained the same. Hence, the quality of optimizing critical welding areas has denitely been improved. References
hten und dungsverhaltens von Schweina [1] Zigo M. Bewertung des Ermu Schweipunkten auf der Basis lokaler Konzepte. Diplomarbeit TU Wien; 2003. [2] Radaj D. Gestaltung und Berechnung von Schweikonstruktionen, r Schweitechnik Fachbuchreihe Schweitechnik, Deutscher Verlag fu sseldorf; 1985. p. 152 ff. GmbH, Du [3] Zhang G, Richter B. A new approach to the numerical fatigue-life prediction of spot-welded structures. Fatigue Fract Eng Mater Struct 2000; 23:499508. [4] Eibl M. Berechnung der Schwingfestigkeit laserstrahlgeschweiter Feinbleche mit lokalen Konzepten. Dissertation, TU Darmstadt, Fachbereich Maschinenbau; 2003. [5] Wei E, Rudolph J, Hoffmann J. Nichtadaptive Vernetzungsstrategie zur dungsfestigkeitsnachweis. Erzielung reproduzierbarer Resultate beim Ermu Tagungsband 16. CAD-FEM Users Meeting, 07.-09.10, Bad NeuenahrAhrweiler; 1998. hle mit hoher statischer, necke J, Golmann M. Neue Sta [6] Bork C-P, Hu r den Automobilbau, Bundesanstalt dynamischer und Dauerfestigkeit fu r Materialforschung und -pru fung. Forschungsbericht 216; 1997, [ISBN fu 3-89429-774-3]. tzung von Fahrwerksteilen unter Beru ck[7] Mayer A. Lebensdauerabscha sichtigung der sich drehenden Hauptspannungen. Dissertation, TU-Graz; 1996.