ABSTRACT
An effective nominal stress has been determined using an effective cross-sectional area derived from known formulae for static strength. The hot spot (or “geometric”) stress for fatigue analysis was calculated by multiplying the effective nominal stress by an appropriate stress concentration factor, Ks. The fatigue analysis is then based on known hot spot S-N curves accounting for the thickness effect. Seven different K-joint cases including gapped and overlapped types have been studied. It is shown that a constant value of Ks = 4 is a good approximation for all joint and failure types studied.
