Abstract
This experiment was carried out in order to examine cyclic inelastic actions and low-cycle fatigue properties of welded joints of steel structures. Base metals which consisted of mild to high tensile strength steel, namely, SS41 to HT80, were used. The welded joints were made by means of various kinds of butt welding processes. These base metals and the welded joints were fabricated and shaped into cylindrical specimens, and loaded cyclically by an uniaxial tension-compression method, to the point where the specimens were fractured. No significant differences between the base metal and the welded joint were observed at the steady-states. However, as for fatigue strength, some deterioration was observed at the lower cycles with regard to the welded joints of the base metals whose monotonic tensile strength is relatively high. New quantitative estimations with respect to energy absorption capacity and low-cycle fatigue strength deterioration are also proposed herein.
