This paper clarifies the terminologies used to describe the size effect on fatigue behavior of welded joints. It summarizes the existing research on size effect in the perspective of newly defined terminologies. It identifies knowledge gaps in designing tubular joints using the hot spot stress method, i.e. thin-walled tubular joints with wall thickness less than 4 mm and thick-walled tubular joints with wall thickness larger than 50mm, or diameter to thickness ratio less than 24. It is the thin-walled tubular joints that are addressed in this paper. It is found that thin-walled tube-plate T-joints do not follow the conventional trend: the thinner the section is, the higher the fatigue life. It is also found that simple extrapolation of existing fatigue design curves may result in unsafe design of thin-walled tube-tube T-joints. The effect of chord stiffness on fatigue behavior of thin-walled tubular T-joints is also discussed. © World Scientific Publishing Company.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Research Division:	Engineering
Research Group:	Civil engineering
Research Field:	Structural engineering
Objective Division:	Construction
Objective Group:	Construction materials performance and processes
Objective Field:	Metals
UTAS Author:	Mashiri, F (Dr Fidelis Mashiri)
ID Code:	49903
Year Published:	2007
Web of Science® Times Cited:	11
Deposited By:	Engineering
Deposited On:	2008-04-23
Last Modified:	2009-12-02
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