Adaptive Fatigue Assessment of Welded Plate Joints Based on Crack Measurements

Accurate fatigue assessment of welded plate joints remains critical for bridges, ships, offshore platforms, and steel structures subjected to cyclic environmental actions. Adaptive fatigue assessment of the structures incorporating with the crack measurement is essential for the digitalization process in civil engineering. This study conducts high-cycle fatigue tests of welded plate joints and proposes a new and enhanced constitutive damage model to simulate the fatigue damage. The constitutive damage model successfully predicts the fatigue life of welded plate joints under different levels of cyclic loadings. The remaining fatigue life of welded plate joints is updated through adsorbing periodic crack measurement information and achieves good agreement with the experimental results. The framework of this study lays the foundation in the digital twin of the local welded plate joints in offshore structures.