Automatically welded tubular X-joiuts

To increase The competitiveness of jacket substructures compared to monopiles a changeover from an individual towards a serial jacket production based on automated manufactured tubular joints combined with standardized pipes has to be achieved. Therefore, tins paper addresses the welding process of automated manufactured tubular X-joints. Additionally, fatigue tests of the automatically welded tubular joints are presented focusing on the location of the technical fatigue crack. The detected location of the technical crack is compared to numerical investigations predicting the most fatigue prone notch considering the structural stress approach as well as the notch stress approach.