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In tubular joints, the hot spot stress concept is used to characterize the stress field
at potential fatigue crack locations. The combination of determining stresses using
the hot spot concept, with a reduction factor on fatigue strength is however not a
satisfactory solution. In this paper, an overview of a on-going research project in
which the overall phenomenon, including geometrical size effects, welding
residual stresses and loading effects, is presented.
Within this project, fatigue tests and residual stresses investigations are carried
out on planar circular hollow sections (CHS) truss girders as well as on isolated
K-joints. Residual stresses measurements aim to get intensity, variability with
depth and influence of fabrication sequence. They are obtained using the
incremental hole-drilling method.