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Description of  Fatigue Life Analyses of Welded Structures: Flaws

Avoiding or controlling fatigue damage is a major issue in thedesign and inspection of welded structures subjected to dynamicloading. Life predictions are usually used for safe life analysis,i.e. for verifying that it is very unlikely that fatigue damagewill occur during the target service life of a structure. Damagetolerance analysis is used for predicting the behavior of a fatiguecrack and for planning of in-service scheduled inspections. Itshould be a high probability that any cracks appearing are detectedand repaired before they become critical. In both safe lifeanalysis and the damage tolerance analysis there may be largeuncertainties involved that have to be treated in a logical andconsistent manner by stochastic modeling. This book focuses on fatigue life predictions and damage toleranceanalysis of welded joints and is divided into three parts. Thefirst part outlines the common practice used for safe life anddamage tolerance analysis with reference to rules and regulations.The second part emphasises stochastic modeling and decision-makingunder uncertainty, while the final part is devoted to recentadvances within fatigue research on welded joints. Industrialexamples that are included are mainly dealing with offshore steelstructures. Spreadsheets which accompany the book give the readerthe possibility for hands-on experience of fatigue lifepredictions, crack growth analysis and inspection planning. Assuch, these different areas will be of use to engineers andresearchers.