Fatigue behaviour of a welded I-section under a line load in compression

This paper is part of an evaluation of fatigue cracks in a crane runway girder with full penetration welds between the web and flange. The fatigue analysis of this actual crane runway girder is described in [1]. The investigation described in this paper deals with additional experimental tests on equivalent welded I sections on scale of approximately 1:2 subjected to a fluctuating line load in compression. The objective of these experimental investigations is to investigate whether cracks stop or nearly stop when they have grown through the residual tensile stress field. The test results show that, in some cases the cracks in the weld, at the weld toe with the web or with the flange initiate and grow from one side to about 50 to 60% of the web thickness and then stop. However, at the weld toe with the flange the cracks grow sometimes from both sides but with the cracks at one side having a small length and/or a small depth. The minimum ratio in life between crack initiation and maximum crack was a factor 1.2 for cracks occurring at one side only and 1.5 to 3.1 for cracks at both sides.