Investigation fatigue crack initiation and propagation cruciform welded joints by extended finite element method (XFEM) and implementation SED approach

This study has used the strain energy density (SED) approach to evaluate stress intensity factor (SIF) of cracked cruciform welded joints in Hardox 450 steel. A microstructural analysis was made steel which is composed refined and tempered low carbon martensite. The obtained results simulation will be compared with those provided by J-integral methode for different enriched zones contours based on extended finite element method (XFEM) coupled level set technique (LST). Crack initiation propagation under cyclic loading have been adopted modeling joints.