ABSTRACT
An interesting technological improvement has been realised on the profiling of tubular and rectangular pipes. This development is owing to the recently optimised combination on preparation systems, cutting machines with integrated pipe handling systems and cutting technology (oxy fuel, plasma and others), resulting in attractive alternative connections in tubular structures, such as diamond bird beak joints using square hollow sections. The paper presents results of a numerical investigation on stress concentration factors (SCFs) as used for the hot spot stress approach for fatigue design. In comparison with the SCFs obtained from previous work for conventional connections, the SCFs for diamond bird beak joints look very promising. In the near future this may result in more economical designs of tubular connections. The paper presents the main conclusions of the investigation of SCFs for the whole range of T-joint parameters considered as well as the results of a comparison with the conventional RHS-connections and CHS-connections.
