ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the required modeling accuracy, but for fatigue design of thin welded structures, a more comprehensive sensitivity analysis is needed to determine the limits for the distortion shape and magnitude to correspond to a certain fatigue capacity. One of the key challenges for fatigue design of large welded thin structures is the consideration of initial distortions in the response analysis. One of the main challenges for fatigue design is the welding-induced initial distortion and its consideration in the response analysis. Each benchmark participant was free to choose the approach for structural analysis, including the way of handling the geometry data. The participants were expected to report the fatigue critical location along the butt weld and the structural hot spot stress range in that location under the given applied load level. The weld profile was not modeled, but one row of elements coinciding with the butt weld had larger plate thickness to consider higher stiffness.
