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Proceedings of The Twelfth (2002) International Offshore and Polar Engineering Conference

Kitakyushu, Japan, May 26 31, 2002


Copyright 2002 by The International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers
ISBN 1-880653-58-3 (Set); ISSN 1098-6189 (Set)

Fatigue Strength of Thermo-Mechanically Controlled Process Steel and Its Weld Joint
Hajime Kawano
National Maritime Research Institute, Japan.

steel has strong correlation with its tensile strength. Then TMCP steel is
expected, if the tensile strength properties are kept within allowable
range given by a code specification, say HT50-class steel with tensile
strength in the range 450 620 MPa, to have nearly equivalent fatigue
strength to that of a conventional steel in the same class.
Following the above viewpoint, Toyosada (1983) have carried out a
comparative study on fatigue strength between TMCP steels and
conventionally rolled ones. Plotted data in Fig.1(a) show the test results
of conventional HT50 base plate that carried out under the constant
axial load fluctuations and with stress ratio nearly zero. In the figure,
the hatched zone means the resultant fatigue strength range of
conventional HT50 steel as rolled condition, with including a surface
flushed data of the class steel, SM50B.

ABSTRACT
From a view of fatigue strength, a critical review on thermomechanically controlled process (TMCP) steel was shown with picking
up comparative test results in the past on fatigue strength for TMCP
steels, including welded joint, to that of conventionally rolled plates
and with introducing key experiments about important effect of
softened HAZ on welded joint fatigue behaviors, for the purpose to
bring greater attention for structure designer to obtain maximum
advantages of TMCP steels such as excellent weldability, high
toughness at HAZ and good performance in cost efficiency.

KEY WORDS: Fatigue strength; TMCP steels; HAZ softening; S-N


curve; crack growth rate; corrosion fatigue.

INTRODUCTION
At present TMCP steels are widely used in large-size welded
structures. With comparing to conventionally rolled steel, TMCP steels
has strong advantages such as better weldability and high toughness at
heat affected zone (HAZ), that means with no preheating to heavy
welding and reduced weld cracking at HAZ etc.. On the other hand,
combination of low carbon equivalent and large heat input welding may
result in softened HAZ growth, of which tensile strength is lower than
that of the base metal so that it could reduce the welded joint strength
locally.
There are several types of TMCP plates, say accelerated water
cooling type (Type-III) and non-water cooling type (Type-I and II),
and being low carbon equivalent is a common feature to all the types of
TMCP steels. So that the effect of softened HAZ on the weldment
strength had been an issue of wide importance to make clear and hence
many studies and tests have done on the subject in Japan.
In this paper from the viewpoint of fatigue, results of critical review
will be shown on the past comparative fatigue tests on TMCP steels to
conventionally rolled plates and the key experiments that deal with the
effect of softened HAZ on the welded joint fatigue behavior.

Fig.1(a) Base plate fatigue strength (HT50-class conventional steels)


And plotted marks in Fig.1(b) show the test results of TMCP type
HT50 steels that was done under the same test condition, with copying
the same hatched zone shown in Fig.1(a).
From the above results it was confirmed that TMCP base plate
fatigue strength is almost equal to that of conventionally rolled steels.
And also it could be estimated that between YP32 and YP36 steel there
are no significant difference in fatigue strength, both of which are of
TMCP type HT50 steels and have no systematic difference in chemical
composition except detailed heat treatment condition that governs yield
point.

FATIGUE STRENGTH OF TMCP BASE PLATE


According to material engineering knowledge, fatigue strength of a

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