Fatigue crack in large-scale tubular joints for offshore structures

Tubular members have been used for constructing offshore structures. Large-scale fatigue tests of welded tubular K-joints under the balanced in-plane bending brace were carried out to investigate the fatigue behavior of API 2W Gr.50 steel produced by POSCO. The experimental results were verified by numerical approaches and compared with the IIW, DnV RP-C203 and API RP 2A-WSD design curves. The test results based on the hot spot stress were in agreement with the design curves. The SCF factor for tubular K-joint was also obtained. The numerical parametric study of the K-joint (using the finite element program) was described and its results were compared with experimental results. The stress effects of various parameters including alpha, beta, gamma, tau and theta on the stress in the K-joint were investigated. The stress distribution for each parameter was introduced. The study showed that the maximum stress of the joint varied according to the variation of joint parameters.