Analysis of cracked T-tubular welded joints using finite and boundary element methods

This paper demonstrates a kind of coupling scheme of finite elements (FE) to boundary elements (BE) for the analysis of T-tubular welded joints frequently encountered in the offshore industry. At the high stress concentration region between the brace and the chord, BE are used to discretize the domain. This domain is further subdivided into two subdomains along the interface containing the semi-elliptical crack found at the saddle point. The rest of the welded tubular joint is then discretised using the standard 20-nodes isoparametric FE. The efficiency and accuracy of this technique is demonstrated by analyzing T-tubular welded joints, and comparison of the results are made with the experimental tests and finite element method.