The effects of sheet spacing on the fatigue life of spot­welded joints

Building No. 8, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran

^a e-mail: hasanifard@tabrizu.ac.ir

Abstract

While investigating the fatigue strength of spot-welded joints, the effects of sheet spacing or gap amounts between sheet joints may be considered as one of the most important parameters on the fatigue life duration of the joints. The main goal of the present work is to study the influence of sheet spacing on the fatigue life of 5083-O aluminium alloy spot welded tensile-shear joints. The amounts of sheet spacing are the average values over three measurements of photograph observation of the cut-off surfaces from the nugget centre of the spot-welded joints. The amounts of gap distances between spot weld sheet joints for three different electrode clamping force levels were 0.09mm, 0.11mm and 0.13mm, respectively. The values of notch strength reduction factors have been obtained at all levels of applied loads based on volumetric approach. The fatigue lives of spot welded joints have been obtained according to the volumetric method using the notch strength reduction factors and the available smooth S-N curve of 5083-O aluminium alloy sheets. The results based on the volumetric approach have been compared with the experimental fatigue test data and there is good agreement between numerical predictions and experimental results.