181

A fatigue design method for spot-welded lap joints

Dongho Bae1*, Ilseon Sohn2, Wonseok Jung1 and Sung-Jin Song1

1School of Mechanical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Korea
2LAB Team Technical Centre, Ssangyong Motor, Korea

Abstract: Recently, a new issue in the design of spot-welded structures has been economical predic-
tion of a fatigue design criterion without additional fatigue tests. In general, the most typical and
traditional method is the use of a ¢P ­ N curve. However, since the fatigue data on the curve vary
f
according to welding conditions, materials, geometry and fatigue loading conditions, it is necessary
to perform an additional fatigue test in order to determine a new fatigue design criterion for a spot-
welded lap joint of diVerent dimensions and geometry. This is, of course, a very time consuming and
costly task. Thus, in this paper, an economical and advanced design method is proposed, the reliability
and performance of which have been veriŽ ed with the theory of the Weibull probability distribution.
As a mechanical parameter to predict the fatigue design criterion, a maximum stress equation has
been deŽ ned using artiŽ cial neural networks. By using the maximum stress equation and the fatigue
data previously obtained from fatigue tests, a reasonable fatigue design criterion for a spot-welded
lap joint could be predicted without any additional fatigue tests. The results predicted by this method
showed very good agreement with actual fatigue data.

Keywords: spot welding, in-plane bending joint, fatigue design criterion, maximum stress equation,
artiŽ cial neural network, fatigue life prediction, reliability, Weibull probability distribution

NOTATION and systematic fatigue strength evaluation of a spot-

welded lap joint are very important to determine its long-
a shape parameter life fatigue design criterion. However, it is very diYcult
b scale parameter directly to determine the fatigue design criterion with an
c location parameter actual structure. Thus, in general, after evaluating the
F median rank fatigue strength with a simulated specimen satisfying
j jth sample number the structural characteristics of the actual structure, the
N total sample number fatigue design criterion is determined. Then, it is applied
N cycles to failure to the fatigue design of a spot-welded structure.
f One of the most typical and traditional methods for
R Weibull reliability
T transformation function determining the fatigue design criterion relies on the
¢P­ N curve. However, since it varies according to
¢P fatigue load range f
material properties, geometrical factors and mechanical
¢ó fatigue stress range at the nugget edge on the conditions, it is diYcult to determine a systematic fatigue
loading side of the spot-welded lap joint design criterion considering their eVects. Therefore, in
order to predict a fatigue design criterion for a joint of
diVerent shapes and dimensions, it is necessary to per-
1 INTRODUCTION form many additional fatigue tests in order to obtain the
necessary ¢P­ N curve. This requires a large amount
f
Since the fatigue strength of spot-welded lap joints has of unnecessary cost and time. However, if the fatigue
very strong eVects on the structural rigidity and dura- design criterion for speciŽ c joints of various dimensions
bility of spot-welded structures, accurate stress analysis and shapes can be predicted without any additional
fatigue tests, economical fatigue design will be possible.
The MS was received on 1 May 2001 and was accepted after revision Extensive investigations have been performed on the
for publication on 9 January 2002. systematic fatigue strength evaluation of various spot-
* Corresponding author: School of Mechanical Engineering,
Sungkyunkwan University, 300 Chunchun-dong, Jangan-gu, Suwon-si, welded lap joints, and a considerable amount of the data
Kyunggi-do 440-746, Korea. has been accumulated [1–12].
D05101 © IMechE 2002 Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 216 Part D: J Automobile Engineering
182 DONGHO BAE, ILSEON SOHN, WONSEOK JUNG AND SUNG-JIN SONG
In this paper, an advanced and practical fatigue design
method for spot-welded structures has been developed,
and its reliability and performance have been veriŽ ed
using the theory of the Weibull probability distribution
[13]. In order to develop the method, the stress distri-
bution and the maximum principal stress at the nugget
edge on the inner surface of an in-plane bending (IB)
spot-welded lap joint subjected to tensile shear load were
analysed, and the fatigue data were systematically
rearranged using the maximum principal stress, ó .
max
Then, a maximum stress equation presenting the ¢ó ­ N
f
relation was determined by using artiŽ cial neural net-
works [14]. The reliability and performance of the
fatigue design criteria predicted by the method using a
maximum stress equation were veriŽ ed with the theory
of the Weibull probability distribution. The method
developed in this paper will provide  exibility to the
designer as well as saving time and costs.
2 NUMERICAL STRESS ANALYSIS
2.1 Stress analysis on the spot weld
When a tensile shear load is applied to an IB spot-welded
lap joint, the in-plane shear force, P, the in-plane bend-
ing force, Q, and the out-of-plane bending movement,
M, act on the spot weld. Very complicated deformation
is caused by these forces, so that fatigue cracks are gener-
ally initiated at the nugget edge on the inner surface of
the joint by stress concentration, and propagate to the
outer surface [4, 15]. Therefore, it is very important to
analyse the accurate stress distribution and strain
conditions around the nugget edge for reasonable and
systematic fatigue strength evaluation.
Since local plastic strain due to stress concentration
around the nugget edge was predicted, in this paper,
elastoplastic Ž nite element ( FE) analysis was performed
for stress distribution analysis. Figure 1a shows a draw-
ing of an IB spot-welded lap joint fatigue specimen on
which the three-dimensional FE analysis was based. This
model is to simulate a spot-welded bus window pillar
member sustaining in-plane forces due to warping of
the body structure [16]. The chemical compositions
and mechanical properties of the steel from which the
specimens are made are given in Tables 1 and 2. The
dimensions of the standard model are: plate thickness
t=1 mm, plate width w =30 mm, lapped length
2L =30 mm and joint angle õ =2.5°.Eight-noded plane
strain elements were used in the entire domain under
Table 1 Chemical composition of steel (wt %)
C Si Mn P S Ni
SPC* 0.12 0.01 0.127 0.015 0.007 0.025
* SPC: steel plate cold.
Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 216 Part D: J Automobile Engineering
Table 2 Mechanical properties of steel from which specimens
were made
Tensile strength Yield strength Elongation
(MPa) (MPa) (%)
SPC 307.0 168.4 47
consideration. Mesh generation for the upper and lower
plate was symmetrically performed. In particular, the
weld nugget was created by identifying the node numbers
of the elements contacting each other between the upper
and lower plate. Because the range of the maximum
stress occurring at the nugget edge was not identical to
that from the in uence of the geometrical factors of the
IB spot-welded lap joint, the weld nugget was generated
with Ž ner meshes to obtain more accurate results and to
verify the stress concentration range around the nugget
edge. In performing the stress analysis, the elastic and
plastic mechanical properties of the base metal corre-
sponded to actual test data. The modulus of elasticity
( Young’s modulus) of the weld nugget was assumed to
be identical to that of the base metal since its in uence
upon the analysis result was almost negligible [3, 4].
For convenience, in evaluating the eVects of the geo-
metrical factors of the IB spot-welded lap joint on the
stress distribution, a tensile shear load of 9.81 MPa was
applied to the standard model in the direction illustrated
in Fig. 1. However, when systematically rearranging the
fatigue data on the ¢P­ N curve with the maximum
f
stress at the nugget edge of the spot-welded lap joint,
the maximum stresses are calculated by the actual fatigue
loads applied to the fatigue specimen. The total numbers
of elements and nodes are 1164 and 1992 respectively.
Commercial FE programs ( IDEAS and ABAQUS ) were
used for pre- and post-processing and solving.
2.2 Result of stress analysis
As mentioned above, when a tensile shear load is applied
to the specimen, three kinds of mechanical component,
i.e. the in-plane force, the in-plane bending moment and
the out-of-plane bending moment, partially act on the
spot weld. These components cause very complicated
deformation and aVect the stress distribution around the
nugget edge [3, 4]. By this mechanism, stress concen-
tration occurs at the nugget edge on the loading side of
the plate, and its range is in uenced by the various geo-
metrical factors such as the joint angle, the plate thick-
ness and the width of the plate [15]. As an example, the
maximum principal stress generated at the nuggest edge
ranges from +20 to ­ 40° from the centre-line of the
plate, as shown in Fig. 2.
Al Fe It was also shown that the tensile stress was widely
distributed in the region on the loading side, and this
0.045 Bal.
region was removed to the rotating direction of the plate
with increase in the applied load [5, 15].
D05101 © IMechE 2002
 A FATIGUE DESIGN METHOD FOR SPOT-WELDED LAP JOINTS 183

Fig. 1 Simulated model and fatigue test specimen and grips of the IB spot-welded lap joint subjected to a
tensile shear load

3 FATIGUE STRENGTH EVALUATION OF A

SPOT-WELDED LAP JOINT

The conŽ guration of the specimen for fatigue strength

evaluation is shown in Fig. 1b. Since in-plane bending
deformation occurs when a tensile shear load acts on an
IB spot-welded lap joint, the pin-type grips shown in
Fig. 1b were used so that the eVect of in-plane bending
deformation could be suYciently re ected in fatigue. The
spot welding condition to fabricate the fatigue test speci-
men is illustrated in Table 3. Fatigue tests were conduc-
ted using a servohydraulic power system (MTS 10 t)
under the condition of Table 4. Figure 3 presents the
fatigue test results on various IB spot-welded lap joints.
The fatigue limit of the specimen was determined by the
Fig. 2 Maximum stress distribution on the inner surface of fatigue load that did not cause fatigue crack after 107
the upper plate cycles. The in uence of the geometrical factors on the
D05101 © IMechE 2002 Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 216 Part D: J Automobile Engineering
184 DONGHO BAE, ILSEON SOHN, WONSEOK JUNG AND SUNG-JIN SONG

Table 3 Welding condition of specimen although the in uence of the geometrical factors on the
fatigue strength can be compared and evaluated from
Electrode Welding
force, F current, I Welding time Fig. 3, it is very diYcult to determine a systematic fatigue
(N ) (kA) (cycles) design criterion that includes the in uence of the geo-
metrical and mechanical factors. Therefore, it is neces-
Welding condition 1962 8.3 15
sary to develop a new way of determining a systematic
fatigue design criterion from the fatigue data as shown
Table 4 Fatigue test condition in Fig. 3.
The stress categories adopted in fatigue analysis are
Load ratio (R=P /P ) 0 generally the nominal stress, the structural hot spot stress
min max
Frequency (Hz) 25
Wave pattern Sine and the notch stress considering the stress concentration
eVect. The choice of the stress category depends on the
way in which the fatigue strength data are presented.
fatigue strength and the life of the specimens was The nominal stress (ó =P/A=P/Wt, where P is the
n
evaluated. load, A =Wt is the section area, W is the width and t is
From Fig. 3, in the high-load and short-life region, the thickness) of the plate can be considered as a
the in uence of the joint angle and the width of the plate mechanical parameter for the systematic fatigue strength
among the various geometrical factors on the fatigue evaluation of spot-welded lap joints. However, because
strength cannot be clearly evaluated owing to the compli- the nominal stress varies with the applied load and geo-
cated deformation of the thin plate. However, in the low- metrical factors such as the plate thickness and the width
load and long-life region, their in uence is clearly of the plate, it is diYcult to apply it as a parameter for
revealed. The fatigue strength and the life considerably systematic fatigue strength evaluation of spot-welded lap
increases with increase in the plate thickness under the joints [17]. Thus, in this paper, the notch stress consider-
same loading condition owing to the increase in the ing the stress concentration eVect was used as a param-
bending rigidity of the plate. In the case of the same eter for systematic fatigue strength evaluation. However,
thickness condition, the fatigue limit decreases with as previously mentioned, the mechanical components on
increase in the joint angle of the specimen. This is due an IB spot-welded lap joint subjected to tensile shear
to the fact that the torque of the nugget by the in-plane load cause very complicated deformation and aVect the
bending deformation increases linearly with increase in stress distribution around the nugget edge. Therefore,
the joint angle. However, the in uence of the width of the maximum principal stress along the edge of a spot-
the plate on the fatigue strength was not clear in this weld nugget was chosen as the equivalent notch stress
region. Therefore, the data on the ¢P­ N curves of and employed in fatigue strength evaluation.
f
Fig. 3 are widely scattered owing to the various in u- In the case of a fatigue load of constant amplitude,
ences of the geometrical factors of the specimen. Thus, the stress range (i.e. principal stress range, ¢ó) is deŽ ned

Fig. 3 ¢P­ N curves of various spot-welded lap joints

f
Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 216 Part D: J Automobile Engineering D05101 © IMechE 2002
 A FATIGUE DESIGN METHOD FOR SPOT-WELDED LAP JOINTS 185

as follows: and shape is previously obtained as shown in Fig. 4, the

fatigue strength and life of other joints with additional
fatigue load range
dimensions can be predicted using this relation. From
¢P =P ­ P (1) Fig. 4, the fatigue limit (¢ó for 107 cycles) of various IB
max min
spot-welded lap joints subjectd to a tensile shear load
fatigue stress range
was predicted to be about 62.0 MPa.
¢ó = ó ­ ó (2)
max min
stress ratio

A B
ó P
R= min = max (3)
ó P 4 RELIABILITY VERIFICATION OF THE
max min
when R=0 FATIGUE DESIGN CRITERION

ó =0, then ¢ó = ó (4) When predicting the fatigue strength or life of a speciŽ c
min max
and if R ë 0 then spot-welded lap joint from Fig. 4, it is necessary to verify
the reliability of the predicted result for practical
ó =Ró , ¢ó = ó ­ Ró =(1­ R) ó
min max max max max application in the design of spot-welded strutures.
(5) It is well known that the theory of the Weibull prob-
Since the spot-welded lap joint is made from thin steel ability distribution is useful for statistical reliability
sheet and its fatigue strength in S–N curves is sensitive evaluation of fatigue strength and life prediction of weld-
to the stress range, ¢ó, but insensitive to mean stress ments fabricated by arc welding or gas welding [13, 15,
[18], in this paper, the applied stress ratio, R, was zero, 19, 20]. However, in the case of spot welding, it was
as illustrated in Table 4. Therefore, from equation (4), diYcult to conŽ rm its applicability owing to the lack of
the stress range for fatigue strength evaluation of spot- practical data. From previous investigation it was veri-
welded lap joints is equal to the maximum stress, ó . Ž ed that the Weibull distribution function with three
max
This maximum stress actually indicates the maximum parameters is also applicable to spot welding [21, 22].
principal stress at the nugget edge of the spot weld, and Figure 5 illustrates the relationship between the trans-
it can be calculated by the FE analysis mentioned in the formation function calculated by the three-parameter
previous section. Weibull distribution function and the number of cycles
Figure 4 shows the ¢ó ­ N relation rearranged from to failure. It shows good linearity. Thus, the reliability
f
the ¢P­ N relation. It shows that the data on the of the results predicted from Fig. 4 was successfully
f
¢P­ N curves are more systematically rearranged by veriŽ ed using the three-parameter Weibull distribution
f
the maximum principal stress, ó , at the nugget edge function. Figure 6 illustrates the procedure for reliabil-
max
of the spot weld. This result means that, if the ¢ó ­ N ity veriŽ cation. The values of median rank, transform-
f
relation for spot-welded lap joints of speciŽ c dimensions ation function and Weibull reliability were calculated

Fig. 4 ¢ó ­ N relation of various spot-welded lap joints (when R=0, ¢ó = ó )

f max
D05101 © IMechE 2002 Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 216 Part D: J Automobile Engineering
186 DONGHO BAE, ILSEON SOHN, WONSEOK JUNG AND SUNG-JIN SONG

5 DEVELOPMENT OF A NEW FATIGUE DESIGN

METHOD FOR A SPOT-WELDED LAP JOINT

5.1 DeŽ nition of the stress equation

For developing a fatigue design method, it is necessary

to deŽ ne an equation presenting the relationship between
the applied load and the stress range in Figs 3 and 4.
When the loading amplitude is constant and R=0,
¢P=P and ¢ó = ó from equations (1) and (4).
max max
Therefore, the relationship between the maximum stress,
ó , and the maximum fatigue load, P , applied to
max max
the joint can be deŽ ned as follows [15]:
Fig. 5 Weibull transformation function of various spot-
ó P
welded joints max =F max (9)
ó s P
n 0
Therefore

P
ó =F max ó (10)
max s P n
0
where

ó =nominal stress of the plate (MPa)

n
P =applied maximum load ( N )
max
P =standard load (981 N ) for normalization
0
F =shape coeYcient
s
In equation (10), the shape coeYcient, F , including the
s
eVects of the geometrical factors on the maximum stress,
can be deŽ ned with the non-dimensional factors. That
is,

A B
t W õ
F =f , , (11)
s t W õ
0 0 0
where

t =thickness of specimen (mm)

t =thickness of normalization =1.0 mm
0
W =width of specimen (mm)
W =width for normalization=30 mm
0
õ =joint angle of specimen (deg)
Fig. 6 Flow chart for Weibull reliability estimation õ =joint angle for normalization =2.5°
0
In order to deŽ ne the shape coeYcient, F , of equation
s
(11), the sigmoid function of the artiŽ cial neural net-
respectively from the following equations:
work [14] was applied. The input scale is 0.05, the output
j­ 0.3 scale is 0.95 and the number of hidden layers is 9. The
F= ×100 (%) (6)
N +0.4 momentum and adaptive control were applied to
improve the back propagation algorithm. The detail
T=­ ln(1 ­ F) (7) values to calculate the shape coeYcient using the arti-

C A BD
x­ c a Ž cial neural network are as follows: the number of pat-
R(x)=exp ­ (8 ) terns is 40, the momentum coeYcient is 0.9 and the error
b
rate for adaptive control is 0.001. The increase and
From the result, the reliability of the fatigue strength decrease in learning rates are 1.15 and 0.7 respectively.
and life predicted from the ¢ó ­ N relation in Fig. 4 The structure of the artiŽ cial neural network adopted in
f
was evaluated to be 92.91 per cent. this work is shown in Fig. 7.
Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 216 Part D: J Automobile Engineering D05101 © IMechE 2002
 A FATIGUE DESIGN METHOD FOR SPOT-WELDED LAP JOINTS
Fig. 7 Architecture of the artiŽ cial neural network
5.2 Prediction procedure of the fatigue design criterion
The prediction procedure of the fatigue design criterion
is illustrated in Fig. 8. After rearranging the ¢P ­ N
f
relationship in Fig. 3 with the maximum stress at the
nugget edge that is calculated by the FE analysis, the
¢ó ­ N relationship in Fig. 4 was determined. This
f
¢ó ­ N relationship becomes a fundamental foundation
f f
for predicting the fatigue design criterion of a speciŽ c
IB spot-welded lap joint. If the shape coeYcient, F , for
s
Fig. 8 Flow chart of the proposed fatigue design method
D05101 © IMechE 2002
187
a joint of diVerent dimension is determined, the maxi-
mum stress at the nugget edge of the spot weld can be
calculated from equation (10). These calculated results
are summarized in Table 5. Thus, by using these maxi-
mum stresses and the ¢ó ­ N relationship in Fig. 4, the
f
fatigue lives corresponding to the maximum stresses can
be directly predicted without any additional fatigue tests.
As initial examples, Ž rstly, when ¢P=981 N is
applied to an IB spot-welded lap joint with W =30 mm,
t=1.0 mm, õ =2.5° and 2L=30 mm, the calculated
maximum stress, ó , at the nugget edge is 80.2 MPa
max
by equation ( 10) and 80.0 MPa by the FE analysis. The
fatigue life corresponding to 80.2 MPa is predicted as
N =5.3×106 cycles from the ¢ó ­ N relation in Fig. 4,
f f
and its tested fatigue life corresponding to ¢P=981 N
is N =5.6×106 cycles from the ¢P­ N relation in
f f
Fig. 3.
Next, when ¢P=2.55×103 N is applied to a joint
with W =30 mm, t =2.0 mm, õ =2.5° and 2L=30 mm,
the calculated maximum stress at the nugget edge is
130.5 MPa by equation (10) and 126.3 MPa by the FE
analysis. Its fatigue life corresponding to 130.5 MPa is
predicted as N =2.3×105 cycles from the ¢ó ­ N
f f
relation in Fig. 4, and its tested fatigue life corresponding
to ¢P=2.55×103 N is N =6.5×105 cycles from the
¢P­ N relation in Fig. 3. In this case, a large diVerence
f
between the fatigue lives predicted with the calculated
maximum stress and the actually measured life is
expected owing to the in uence of data scatter in the
high-load and short-life region in Fig. 4. However, the
interesting parameters for the fatigue design of a spot-
welded lap joint are its fatigue limit, fatigue strength and
life in the low-load and long-life region. In the low-load
and long-life region of Fig. 4, the predicted fatigue lives
of various spot-welded lap joints show good agreement
with the actually measured fatigue test results as shown
in Table 5. Thus, the application of the fatigue design
criterion for untested spot-welded lap joints of diVerent
geometries was illustrated.
Figure 9 illustrates the fatigue life prediction pro-
cedure as an example. When ¢P=1.0×103 N is applied
to an IB spot-welded lap joint with W =30 mm, t =
1.0 mm, õ =2.0° and 2L=30 mm, which is not yet
tested, the maximum stress, ó , at the nugget edge is
max
calculated to be 80.2 MPa by equation (10), and the
predicted fatigue life corresponding to 80.2 MPa is N =
f
6.5×106 cycles. Also, in the case of another untested
joint with W =50 mm, t=1.5 mm, õ =3.0° and 2L=
50 mm, when ¢P=1500 N is applied, the maximum
stress is calculated to be 85.3 MPa, and the predicted
fatigue life is N =5.0×106 cycles. The additional results
f
predicted by this method are given in Table 5.
From the above results it has been established that,
by using the maximum stress equation (10) and the
¢ó ­ N relation, the fatigue design criteria for IB spot-
f
welded lap joints of diVerent dimensions can be eVec-
tively predicted and determined without any additional
Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 216 Part D: J Automobile Engineering
188 DONGHO BAE, ILSEON SOHN, WONSEOK JUNG AND SUNG-JIN SONG

Table 5 Comparison of results between the maximum stress equation and Ž nite element analysis (FEA)

Maximum stress Maximum stress Tested fatigue Predicted fatigue

by neural network by FEA life life
Specimen geometry (MPa) (MPa) (cycles) (cycles)

W=30 mm, t=1 mm, õ =2.5°,

2L=30 mm, ¢P=981 N 80.2 80.0 1.0×107 1.0×107
W=30 mm, t=1 mm, õ =7.5°,
2L=30 mm, ¢P=785 N 85.4 82.4 5.6×106 5.3×106
W=60 mm, t=1 mm, õ =2.5°,
2L=60 mm, ¢P=1570 N 113.9 115.6 4.6×105 4.8×105
W=30 mm, t=2 mm, õ =2.5°,
2L=30 mm, ¢P=1374 N 72.7 77.7 9.6×106 1.0×107
W=30 mm, t=2 mm, õ =2.5°,
2L=30 mm, ¢P=2551 N 130.5 126.3 6.5×105 2.3×105
W=30 mm, t=1 mm, õ =2.0°,
2L=30 mm, ¢P=1000 N 80.2 — — 6.5×106
W=30 mm, t=1 mm, õ =6.0°,
2L=30 mm, ¢P=1100 N 107.8 — — 1.5×106
W=40 mm, t=1.5 mm, õ =2.5°,
2L=40 mm, ¢P=1400 N 84.6 — — 5.1×106
W=50 mm, t=1.5 mm, õ =3.0°,
2L=50 mm, ¢P=1500 N 85.3 — — 5.0×106

Fig. 9 Prediction of the fatigue design criterion for IB spot-welded lap joints of diVerent geometry

fatigue tests. This also means that, if the ¢ó ­ N relation
f f
and the maximum stress equation are available for given
joint types, their fatigue design criterion can be economi-
cally determined without any additional fatigue tests.
6 CONCLUSION
In order to develop a new fatigue design method for
spot-welded lap joints, the stress distribution of an IB
Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 216 Part D: J Automobile Engineering
spot-welded lap joint was analysed. The ¢P­ N curves
were systematically rearranged in the ¢ó ­ N relation
f
using the maximum stress, ó , at the nugget edge on
max
the inner surface of the lap joint. A maximum stress
equation presenting the ¢ó ­ N relation was proposed
f
by the artiŽ cial neural network. The reliability and per-
formance of the predicted fatigue design criteria were
veriŽ ed with the theory of the Weibull probability distri-
bution. Conclusions can be summarized as follows:
1. The systematic fatigue limit of various IB spot-welded
D05101 © IMechE 2002
 A FATIGUE DESIGN METHOD FOR SPOT-WELDED LAP JOINTS
lap joints subjected to a tensile shear load is predicted
to be about 62.0 MPa.
2. As a mechanical parameter for the economic predic-
tion of the fatigue design criteria, the maximum stress
equation was proposed.
3. By using the maximum stress equation and the
¢ó ­ N relation, the fatigue design criteria of
f 10 Zhang, S. C. Stress intensities at spot welds. Int. J. Fracture,
spot-welded lap joints of optional dimensions can be
predicted without any additional fatigue tests, with a
reliability of over 92 per cent.
4. It is expected that the new fatigue design method pro-
posed in this paper can provide design  exibility to
the designer as well as a considerable saving in cost
and time by reducing the additional fatigue tests.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors are grateful for the support provided by a
grant from the Korea Science and Engineering
Foundation ( KOSEF ) and Safety and Structural
Integrity Research Center (SAFE ) at the Sungkyunkwan
University.
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Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 216 Part D: J Automobile Engineering