PSI - Issue 75

ScienceDirect Structural Integrity Procedia (2025) 000 – 000 Structural Integrity Procedia (2025) 000 – 000 Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect

www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia

Procedia Structural Integrity 75 (2025) 593–601

© 2025 The Authors. Published by ELSEVIER B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0) Peer-review under the responsibility of Dr Fabien Lefebvre with at least 2 reviewers per paper Abstract The Peak Stress Method (PSM) is a local, finite element-based approach for the fatigue assessment of welded joints, relying on linear-elastic peak stresses calculated at weld toes and roots and obtained from coarse-meshed 2D or 3D solid models. The method employs an equivalent peak stress as the design stress, which enables fatigue life estimation for welded components made of either structural steel or aluminium alloys, under both uniaxial and multiaxial loading conditions. The PSM has been validated against a large experimental dataset, comprising approximately 2000 fatigue test results. To streamline its application in the engineering practice, a dedicated tool, the so-called “ PSM App ”, has been developed within the Ansys® Mechanical environment to support finite element analysts in the fatigue design of complex welded assemblies. In this context, shell elements can be used to reduce model size and enable the efficient analysis of large-scale structures. This work presents a numerical procedure that integrates shell and solid modelling by employing a main model of the full structure meshed with shell elements and local submodels of critical regions meshed with ten-node tetrahedral solid elements. A case study taken from the literature is reported, concerning the fatigue strength assessment of Circular Hollow Section (CHS) braces welded to Square Hollow Section (SHS) chords made of structural steel and subjected to axial loading. The equivalent peak stress distributions obtained through the proposed shell-to-solid submodelling approach are compared with those derived from a solid model of the full structure. The comparison highlights the effectiveness of the proposed strategy in balancing computational efficiency and fatigue assessment accuracy. © 2025 The Authors. Published by ELSEVIER B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0) Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the Fatigue Design 2025 organizers Keywords: Welded joints; Fatigue design; Peak Stress Method (PSM); Shell finite elements Fatigue Design 2025 (FatDes 2025) The Peak Stress Method combined with shell finite element models for the fatigue design of complex welded structures Alberto Visentin a , Alberto Campagnolo a , Vittorio Babini b and Giovanni Meneghetti a * a Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Padova, via Venezia, 1 – 35131 Padova (Italy). b Antonio Zamperla S.p.a., Via Monte Grappa 15/17, Altavilla Vicentina 36007, Italy Abstract The Peak Stress Method (PSM) is a local, finite element-based approach for the fatigue assessment of welded joints, relying on linear-elastic peak stresses calculated at weld toes and roots and obtained from coarse-meshed 2D or 3D solid models. The method employs an equivalent peak stress as the design stress, which enables fatigue life estimation for welded components made of either structural steel or aluminium alloys, under both uniaxial and multiaxial loading conditions. The PSM has been validated against a large experimental dataset, comprising approximately 2000 fatigue test results. To streamline its application in the engineering practice, a dedicated tool, the so-called “ PSM App ”, has been developed within the Ansys® Mechanical environment to support finite element analysts in the fatigue design of complex welded assemblies. In this context, shell elements can be used to reduce model size and enable the efficient analysis of large-scale structures. This work presents a numerical procedure that integrates shell and solid modelling by employing a main model of the full structure meshed with shell elements and local submodels of critical regions meshed with ten-node tetrahedral solid elements. A case study taken from the literature is reported, concerning the fatigue strength assessment of Circular Hollow Section (CHS) braces welded to Square Hollow Section (SHS) chords made of structural steel and subjected to axial loading. The equivalent peak stress distributions obtained through the proposed shell-to-solid submodelling approach are compared with those derived from a solid model of the full structure. The comparison highlights the effectiveness of the proposed strategy in balancing computational efficiency and fatigue assessment accuracy. © 2025 The Authors. Published by ELSEVIER B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0) Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the Fatigue Design 2025 organizers Keywords: Welded joints; Fatigue design; Peak Stress Method (PSM); Shell finite elements Fatigue Design 2025 (FatDes 2025) The Peak Stress Method combined with shell finite element models for the fatigue design of complex welded structures Alberto Visentin a , Alberto Campagnolo a , Vittorio Babini b and Giovanni Meneghetti a * a Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Padova, via Venezia, 1 – 35131 Padova (Italy). b Antonio Zamperla S.p.a., Via Monte Grappa 15/17, Altavilla Vicentina 36007, Italy

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +39 049 8276751; fax: +39 049 8276785. E-mail address: giovanni.meneghetti@unipd.it * Corresponding author. Tel.: +39 049 8276751; fax: +39 049 8276785. E-mail address: giovanni.meneghetti@unipd.it

2452-3216 © 2025 The Authors. Published by ELSEVIER B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0) Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the Fatigue Design 2025 organizers 2452-3216 © 2025 The Authors. Published by ELSEVIER B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0) Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the Fatigue Design 2025 organizers

2452-3216 © 2025 The Authors. Published by ELSEVIER B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0) Peer-review under the responsibility of Dr Fabien Lefebvre with at least 2 reviewers per paper 10.1016/j.prostr.2025.11.060