Ermüdungsfestigkeit nach EN 1993-1-9 - Anhang B: Strukturspannungen - Gedanken zur Neufassung

Fatigue strength according to EN 1993-1-9 - Annex B: structural stresses - Thoughts to the revised version.

The calculation of fatigue strength of steel structures is regulated in the EN 1993-1-9, section "Fatigue". As an alternative to the use of the nominal stress concept, the structural hot spot concept can be applied to certify the fatigue strength. However, the Eurocode provides too little information for a successful application. As a consequence, the user has to get the necessary information from other codes or guidelines outside the Eurocode framework. Other guidelines like the IIW Recommendations and many other publications provide hints and suggestions for a user-friendly application of the different approaches for fatigue design. It would be desirable that these pieces of information and suggestions were taken into consideration in the next revision of the Annex B: "Fatigue resistance using the geometric (hot spot) stress method". Through a systematic preparation of this information, section 9 of the Eurocode 1993, "Fatigue", could become a progressive and user-friendly code for fatigue design. The idea of this article is to show, with the help of data taken from the IIW Recommendations and other publications, that the application of the hot spot stress approach could become much simpler.