Experimental Verification of HFMI Treatment of Large Structures

Design recommendations for high frequency mechanical impact (HFMI)-treated welds have been proposed based on available experimental fatigue data of axially-loaded high strength steel specimens which include longitudinal, cruciform and butt welds. Test specimens were of a size appropriate for laboratory study. However, in reality, structures in civil, offshore and ship industries generally include large-scale and more complicated components, such as bridges, cranes, platforms, excavators etc. This paper presents a further validation of the design proposals by considering fatigue data sets which are obtained from large-scale components. The extracted fatigue data from the available literature includes bridge, crane and beam like components. In total, 65 published test results of weld details with various yield strengths (250 ≤ f_y ≤ 725 MPa) and stress ratios (−1 ≤ R ≤ 0.56) are presented. All the data are found to be in good agreement with the previously-shown design curves.