DEVELOPMENT OF A COMPUTATIONAL TOOL FOR FATIGUE ASSESSMENT OF STEEL STRUCTURES ACCORDING TO THE MASTER S-N CURVE METHOD

Resumo

In a recent publication, Alencar et al [1] demonstrated that the Master S-N curve method is equally
appropriate to assess the fatigue strength of welded bridge details. The Master S-N curve method is an
alternative option included in the context of the American mechanical engineer’s standard (ASME Sec VIII
Div2) in the last decade, which allows the use of coarse finite elements to carry out estimates of the remaining
fatigue life of welded details, despite its advantage in the use of a unique fatigue strength S-N curve. This paper
presents the development of a computational tool for the Master S-N curve method. The tool was built into
ANSYS Mechanical and allow to carry out fatigue life estimations of welded structures and mechanical
components under constant amplitude loading.