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Failure of steel structures: causes and remedies 5

FATIGUE FAILURE

Failure from fatigue is the most common form of failure for the very simple
reason that few structures are subjected to the static loading assumed in design.
Fatigue failures almost invariably start from a discontinuity producing stress
concentration, which are in any case frequently ignored in design calculation, or
which are quite often not even part of the design yet when the design calculations
are made.
If we continue to use the conventional permissible stress method of design-
and there is no new philosophy in sight that would permit us to dispense with it-
we must clearly recognize that since fatigue is strongly form-dependent the per-
missible· stress we use must also be form-dependent and not merely material-
dependent. Curiously, designers who are quite content to accept the concept of
permissible stresses as dependent on form in relation to instability are reluctant
to accept what is exactly the same situation in relation to fatigue.
The difficulty, of course, lies in the very much greater variety of forms that must
be considered in relation to fatigue than the much more limited number of situa-
tions-in the main thin-walled and slender members in compression or shear
that have to be considered as being liable to failure by instability. The amount of
testing necessary to provide what would in relation to fatigue be the equivalent
of column, flat-plate and shell-buckling formulae would also be enormously greater.
If we consider, however, the facilities available today for such experimental work
and the ease of international communication and compare them with those
available to say Rankin, Tetmajer or Timoshenko, it should not prove impossible
to deal with this work, provided it was properly systematized and organized on an
international basis.
STRESS CORROSION

Like ordinary corrosion, stress corrosion is an electro-chemical process. Since

it can take place in structures entirely free from stresses caused by applied loads
merely as the result of residual stress of one kind or another, the conventional
methods of structural design are totally irrelevant in relation to its prevention.
While a great deal is known about the phenomenon, every new case that occurs-
and it is not as uncommon as a cause of failure as may be thought-presents some
new hitherto unexpected facet. Of two virtually identical chemical plants recently
constructed from the same steel at the same time making the same product
from the same raw material but from two different sources of supply, one failed
from stress corrosion, whereas the other one is still intact. Relatively small
changes in the character of the corrosive medium-and ordinary water can be
such a medium in relation to some metals-small differences in the chemical com-
position or temper of the material can cause stress corrosion to occur.
In relation to the rapidly increasing variety of chemical processes and new
chemical raw materials and products the amount of work in this field is pitifully
small. Considering the paucity of detailed information at the disposal of designers
of chemical plant, it is surprising that the number of failures experienced is as small
as it is. There is, of course, no financial reward from this type of industrial research,