Weld Defects and Failures: Quantifying Fitness For Service – How Finite Element Mathematical Simulations can Mitigate Risk and Cut Costs
Article by Dr. William J. O’Donnell, PE, President – O’Donnell Consulting Engineers
Fatigue in Welded steel components is often initiated by mathematical vibration, corrosion and thermal cycling. Fitness for service analysis is the most viable step in determining the safety and financial risk factors related to component repair or replacement.
In materials science, fatigue refers to failure that results to cyclic stress. Most often, failures manifest themselves in some form of mechanical or thermal fatigue, often in some form of vibration, loading and unloading, or repetitive fluctuations of temperature. These failures are often blamed on the designer or fabricator, where the real cause is transient operating conditions. For instance, operators often increase applied loads in an effort to increase productivity; as a result, they inadvertently push the limits of fatigue damage and increase the risk of failures. As a point of reference, it is estimated that fatigue contributes to approximately 90% of all mechanical service failures.
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