Fatigue life prediction of heavy mining equipment. Part 2: Behaviour of corner crack in steel welded box section and remaining fatigue life determination

摘要: Abstract Frequent fatigue failure of mining equipment has created a need for life prediction several components that suffer from frequent recurrence cracking. The focus this paper is the occurrence cracks in boom cable shovels, which consists twin box girder joining together near both extremities. After determination load spectrum and material properties by field monitoring testing, behaviour cracked shovel was investigated. Two-tip corner were particular interest since they are commonly observed field. These typically initiate flange at toe web to or diaphragm welds propagate into web. Detailed finite element models with developed stress intensity factors various crack configurations evaluated analysis results. growth studied simplified method presented prediction. Fracture toughness tests conducted on single edge notch bend specimens room temperature low (−50  ∘ C). remaining then determined based brittle fracture unstable growth.