Abstract
Fatigue behavior of fillet welded joints with a scallop under highway and railroad loading was studied. Variable amplitude stress fluctuations were generated by computer simulations of highway and railroad live loads. Fatigue failure occurred even if the equivalent stress range was less than the constant amplitude fatigue limit. Therefore, fatigue life evaluation assuming that stress ranges below the fatigue limit did no damage was unconservative. It was verified that the fatigue life under variable amplitude loading could be estimated accurately by applying the fracture mechanics approach with the linear damage rule.
