Fatigue strength of laser welded structural steels

Laser beam welded joints from structural steels StE 355 and StE 690 were tested under pulsating tension loading. The fatigue test results of as welded specimens are in good agreement with fatigue behaviour of conventianal welded joints. For machine finished welded joints of StE 355 an increase in fatigue limit of about 100 MPa was obtained. An estimated local fatigue limit of defect free weld metal can be used as an input quantity for fatigue design of laser welded StE 355 components by the local concept.