Low Cycle Fatigue Analysis of Marine Structures

There are situations where a marine structure is subjected to stress cycles of such large magnitude that small, but significant, parts of the structural component in question experiences cyclic plasticity. Welded joints are particularly vulnerable because of high local stress concentrations. Fatigue caused by oscillating strain in the plastic range is called “low cycle fatigue”. Cycles to failure are typically below 10⁴. Traditional welded joint S-N curves do not describe the fatigue strength in the low cycle region (< 10⁴ number of cycles). Typical Class Society Rules do not directly address the low cycle fatigue problem. It is therefore the objective of this paper to present a credible fatigue damage prediction method of welded joints in the low cycle fatigue regime.