In this paper, fatigue crack propagation life of resistance spot welds in tensile-shear specimens is investigated based on the calculation of stress intensity factors and J-integral using three-dimensional finite
element method. For comparison, experimental works on 5083-O aluminum alloy spot-welded joints have
been carried out to verify the numerical predictions of fatigue crack propagation of welded joints. A lot of
analyses have been performed to obtain stress intensity factors and J-integral in tensile-shear specimens of
spot-welded joints by using commercial software ANSYS. These gathered data have been formulated by
using statistical software SPSS. The results of fatigue propagation life and predicted fatigue crack path
revealed very good agreement with the experimental fatigue test data and photograph of cross-section of the
fatigued spot-weld specimens.