IIW History 1948-1958

COMMISSION XIII

FATIGUE TESTING

r. CONSTITUTION AND TERMS OF REFERENCE.

The technical Commissions of the II"W deal either with the welding processes. or with the problems raised by their application. Normally, these problems are only mentioned in general terms in the title of the Commission; 'vith Commission XIII, however, the title alone shows that it is concerned with the general phenomen– on of fatigue failure in the particular case of welded construction. For this reason, before describing the constitution, t erms of reference, working methods and work accomplished by this Commission, it should perhaps be st at ed that, though it has up to the present devoted most of its activity to the study of fatigue tests , its final objective remains the improvement of \Yelded constructions sub– jected to fatigue . Seen in this light , its work has been in conformity with the principles governing the work of the II\iV as set out in its Constitution. At the Delft session in 1949, it was decided t o set up Commission X III and to ask Professo r Ros, (Svvitzerland) to accept the Chairmanship and to draw up· its terms of reference. At the first meeting, which took place in Paris in 1950 under the Chair– manship of Professor Ros, the delegates met and exchanged info rmation about their work and about the testing equipment available in the laboratories in their various countries . After the Paris Assembly, some hesitation became apparent about the future of the Commission: since it\rns required to deal principally with fatigue t ests, it was thought that it should begin its " ·ork as a Sub-Commission of Commission V (Testing, Measurement and Control of ·welds) . For this reason , at the Oxford Assembly (1951), under the Chairmanship of Dr\\ ECK, the Com– mission became t emporarily a Sub-Commission of Commission Y. Ho1Yever, t he