Fatigue behavior of butt welded joints containing inclined lack-of-penetration

In order to study fatigue behavior of welded joints including weld defects with certain angles to the applied stress, butt welded specimens containing lack-of-penetration inclined at angles of 0, 15 and 30 degrees to the direction perpendicular to the applied stress were fatigue-tested. The observations of fracture surfaces indicate that the fatigue crack propagates on the same plane as the inclined lack-of-penetration until it appears at the surfaces of the specimen, and then the through-thickness crack tends to propagate perpendicularly to the applied stress. The comparison of test results indicates that change in the fatigue life is little, despite the different inclined angles of 0, 15 and 30 degrees.