As aluminium alloys have seen increased use in industries including automotive, rail, offshore and marine, so it has become important to ensure welded joints do not show any signs of fatigue failure. The need for fatigue assessment is also important when assessing the remaining fatigue life of existing structures.
However, there is a variety of fatigue design rules as well as a range of extensive testing and fatigue performance analysis to investigate. TWI evaluated the various fatigue design procedures for welded aluminium alloy structures to create a summary of methods for design and remaining life assessments, as well as highlighting areas where further research was required. You can see this assessment in full, here: Fatigue Assessment of Welded Aluminium Structures
