The treatment of secondary strains within a strain-based failure assessment diagram

In a companion paper, proposals for the shape of a strain-based failure assessment diagram (FAD) have been made. The developments in that paper and in related works on strain-based fracture assessment have largely been for remotely applied strains, such as those produced by welding. This paper re-writes existing methods for treating secondary stresses within stress-based FADs in the framework of the proposed strain-based FAD. It is shown that residual strains must be included fully in the elastic regime but at large applied strains their contribution to fracture can be relaxed considerably. Practical methods for inclusion of secondary strains within the strain-based FAD are then developed and shown to be conservative relative to some detailed finite element calculations. ► Methods for treating secondary stresses are written in the framework of a strain-based FAD. ► Residual strains have a full effect in the elastic regime but their influence is relaxed considerably at large applied strains. ► Practical methods for inclusion of secondary strains within a strain-based FAD are developed. ► The methods are shown to be conservative relative to some detailed finite element calculations.