Influence of the mean stress on the fatigue life of welded joints under variable amplitude loading

The effect of the mean stress on fatigue life welded joints fabricated with three different plate thicknesses was investigated under variable amplitude (VA) loading. Test results indicate that Miner's sum, D, at failure increases as reducing in VA loading; hence, limiting D to 0.5, advised design codes, may be unduly conservative assessment. joint a thinner is tend have better performance. New analytical models which can consider both and loading sequence were developed for prediction life. Good agreement observed between predictions test results.