The effect of throat underflushing on the fatigue strength of fillet weldments

The paper deals with the effect of the weld bead geometry on the fatigue strength of a joint, mainly focusing on geometry change due to post-weld grinding. The weld toe burr grinding usually has a positive effect on the fatigue strength; however, excessive material removal at the weld throat can decrease its strength. This effect was experimentally evaluated and compared with proper numerical estimations. By means of the numerical evaluations of the effective stress, obtained by the implicit gradient method, the estimation of the geometric component of the grinding process is possible. With this procedure, it is possible to analyse a real joint, geometrically modelled by laser scanner acquisition, and also to assess the excessive net section reduction in a grinding operation.