Significance of defects in fatigue of Cu-Ni/steel welds

90-10 Copper-nickel sheets were cladded on the ‘ARCO Texas’ oil tanker as a means to evaluate their effectiveness in corrosion protection and reduced biofouling. Both adhesive bonding and welding techniques were used to attach the copper-nickel sheets to the steel ship hull. Since welding frequently involves operator induced defects, intentional defects were created on laboratory type specimens and fatigue tested to failure. The overall results suggest that weld defects do not significantly affect the overall integrity of the structure. However, before such conclusions can be generalized, the effect of environment and the maximum allowable defect size will have to be evaluated for effective safe design in structures.