Development of an automated quality assurance approach for welded joints

Abstract

AbstractA more economical and resource‐saving construction of offshore wind energy converters is necessary in order to achieve climate policy objectives. Automated quality assurance of welded joints offers a great potential to enable less conservative manufacturing of the support structures. The main objective of this study is to find a correlation between the parameters that describe the weld geometry and the fatigue life. Butt welded specimens were scanned with a laser line sensor. The weld seam parameters including notch radius and flank angle were evaluated and the stress concentration factors in the notch were determined considering the microstructural support effect. A series of constant amplitude fatigue tests was conducted in order to evaluate S‐N‐curves according to nominal stress approach and notch stress approach. The fatigue results show a good correlation between notch stresses and fatigue life, demonstrating the great potential of the quality assurance approach for evaluating the weld seam geometries.