PSI - Issue 77

Georg Veile et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 77 (2026) 348–356 Author name / Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2026) 000–000

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• The same applies to scanned weld joint topologies, with exception to FDP FGF . Here FDP FGF did not show a comparable significant reduction in Sd. with doubling Δx from 0.1 to 0.2 mm. • Sd. of idealized weld geometry always outperformed scanned weld joint topologies. However, with Δx=0.10 mm the difference is of no significance. With regard to the scatter, the following statements can be made: • Increasing Δx from 0.05 to 0.20 mm led to a decrease of approx. 50% in Sd. at all FDP. • FDP FGF again had the lowest Sd. However, with an increase in Δx Sd. of scanned weld joint topologies was never below the Sd. of FEA using idealized weld radii. • FDP using the critical plane approach (extensions of FS) outperformed the idealized weld geometry by means of Sd..

Table 1 Median and Standard deviation of FEA with WM using idealised weld joint geometry.

Δx = 0.05 mm

Δx = 0.10 mm

Δx = 0.20 mm

FDP FFS RM FGF

Mdn.

Sd.

Mdn.

Sd.

Mdn.

Sd.

-1.0835 -0.5361 -0.1120

0.4706 0.3789 0.3173

-0.9673 -0.3400 0.0811

0.3704 0.3222 0.2807

-0.4861 0.0476 0.4585

0.3159 0.3020 0.2613

Table 2 Median and standard deviation of FEA with WM using scanned weld joint topologies.

Δx = 0.05 mm

Δx = 0.10 mm

Δx = 0.20 mm

FDP FFS RM FGF

Mdn.

Sd.

Mdn.

Sd.

Mdn.

Sd.

-1.2775 -0.5097 -0.0323

0.4430 0.3745 0.3362

-0.4578 0.1628 0.5798

0.3250 0.3130 0.2986

0.3248 0.8147 1.1970

0.2971 0.3004 0.2997

4. Conclusion With respect to the results of this work, the following conclusions can be drawn:

• FDP FFS is highly sensitive to the determined gradients. • FDP FGF is less sensitive to the gradients. With respect to previous work, this FDP is again the most reliable and performant parameter. • Gradient determination is not the sole causative for increased scatter in fatigue life prediction using weld joint topologies. This indicates that the gradients may also not be the key to reduce scatter in the fatigue life prediction using scanned weld topologies. Finally, it must be recognized that the precision of FDP FGF with 0.26 Sd. using idealized weld radii could not be outperformed by considering scanned weld joint topologies resulting in a Sd. of 0.29. FDP with implemented realistic weld topology still have potential for improvement.