Thickness Effect in Welded Joints - A Review

Most of the previous research on thickness effect was carried out on relatively thicker walled joints typically used in the offshore industry and in ship structures. Results of previous research showing the effect of plate thickness on the fatigue strength of welded plate joints will be summarised. Fatigue design guidelines from different standards will be reviewed. Recent research performed on welded thin-walled joints made up of sections of thicknesses less than 4mm which show that the conventional concept of thickness effect may result in unsafe design of structures composed of thin-walled tubular joints under fatigue load will be discussed.