Abstract
Since stainless steel plates have good mechanical properties, weldability, appearance and resistance of corrosion, these are traditionally used for vehicles such as the bus and the train. And they are mainly fabricated by spot welding. But fatigue strength of their spot welded joint is considerably influenced by welding conditions as well as geometrical factors. Thus a reasonable and systematic criterion for long life design of spot welded body structure must be established. In this report, strain energy density was analyzed by using 3-dimensional finite element model about the IB-type spot welded lap joint under tension-shear load. Fatigue tests were conducted on them having various thickness, joint angle, lapped length and width. From their results, it was found that fatigue strength of the IB-type spot welded lap joints could be effectively and systematically rearranged by strain energy density at the edge of nugget.
