Weld cracking is one of the most important problems in constructing steel structures. It has been investigated to estimate the occurrence of weld cracking by use of the factor such as the intensity of tensile restraint. However, weld cracking is sometimes caused by the angular distortion particularly in multipass weld.
The intensity of bending restraint is proposed as the parameter which evaluates quantitavely the restraint of the angular distortion. In this paper, the effect of the intensity of bending restraint on weld cracking in multipass weld is investigated by use of a newly developed small size test called "Bending Restraint Weld Cracking test (BRC-test)". The occurrence of weld cracking in actual structures is similar to that in the BRC-test. Therefore, the occurrence of weld cracking in actual structures can be predicted by use of the intensity of bending restraint of the structures based on the results of the BRC-test.
