An overview and comparative assessment of approaches to multi-axial fatigue of welded components in codes and standards

Three types of commonly used local stress approaches recognized by Codes and Standards for fatigue of welded joints are reviewed and evaluated with respect to a comprehensive collection of multi-axial fatigue test data available in literature. These local stress approaches are surface-extrapolated hot spot stress, effective notch stress and traction structural stress. The hot spot stress and notch stress approaches are based on those stipulated in Eurocode 3 (2005) and IIW Recommendations (2016). Traction structural stress is based mainly on ASME VIII Div 2 Code (2007) and its latest development. The results show traction structural stress method offers a significantly improved data correlation over hot spot stress and notch stress approaches.