Fatigue assessment of seam welds of automotive components by local stress approaches

In the present paper a method is described for the fatigue assessment of multi‐axial loaded welded joints in structures made from thin steel sheets. The focus is on seam welds under non‐proportional loading, assuming a constant angular phase shift between cycles leading to stress components acting at the seam welds. Fatigue analyses are using a local stress approach based on stresses derived by Theory of Elasticity. Furthermore, potentials of considering statistical size effects in order to analyse weld start and end points are outlined.