SCF in Isotopic & Orthotropic Plates Part I: Uniaxial Load

Abstract
This is the first of two companion papers which collectively present a comprehensive 3D finite element analysis on
stress concentration in isotropic and orthotropic plates. This research investigates the Stress Concentration Factor
(SCF) in isotropic and orthotropic plate due to presence of a central cutout having an orientation θ and effect of
bluntness ratio. The simulations are carried out by using a 20 node solid structural 3D element in ANSYS APDL.
It is established from the simulations that the SCF for Isotropic material are not dependent on material properties,
but dependent upon the shape, size, orientation and location of the cut out. For orthotropic material SCF depends
on material properties. It increases with increase in Ey/Ex ratio and decreases with increase in µxy.

Keywords: Stress concentration; orthotropic; ANSYS; FEM; Bluntness ratio; Uniaxial Load

1. Introduction

Plates are integral structural element in both modern and classical structures, may it be ship structures, offshore oil
platforms, lock gates and floating docks in marine application or part of building structures in aerospace industry.
With the advent of technological advances in material industry light yet strong structures have become a reality.
Being the main structural or load bearing member, the plates withstand a lot of abuse. Hence it becomes necessary
for any design engineer to know the capabilities and limitations of the structure. Cut-outs are provided in many
structures in order to satisfy some service or aesthetic requirement but these cut-outs result in strength degradation
of the plate or structure. In actual practice, cut-outs of different shapes are used for different applications.
Stress analysis of plate with hole is a classical problem in linear elasticity. Holes or cut-outs are provided in
structures to satisfy some functional or service requirement. These discontinuities causes abrupt rise in stress near
its periphery and are hence known as stress concentrators. The ratio of the maximum stress at the cut-out edge to
the nominal stress is called the stress concentration factor (SCF).
Researchers worldwide have devoted a lot of time to understand the various parameters on which SCF depend and
its mitigation. Quite a few excellent articles can be found on the topic. Muskhelishvilli [1] presented analytical
solutions on plates with holes under tension and these were later used by Savin [2] in his works. Peterson did a
comprehensive study on the abrupt changes in geometry of components under static loading for the isotropic
materials his works are presented in detail by Pilkey and Pilkey [3]. Shivkumar and Newman [4] from their works
on plates with straight sunk holes subjected to tension has reported that maximum SCF lies at the mid thickness of
isotropic plates and drops near the free surface. Tafreshi [5] presented work on stress analysis of a series of thick,
wide flat plates with oblique holes subjected to uniaxial tension and out-of-plane bending has been carried out
using the finite element method (FEM), and in some cases the boundary element method (BEM). The effect of
plate thickness by width ratio and central circular hole diameter by width ratio upon stress concentration factor and
deflectionin isotropic and orthotropic plates under transverse static loading condition was studied by Jain and
Sanyal [6]. An analytical stress concentration around irregular holes using complex variable methods are reported
by Simha and Mohapatra [7]. Wu and Mu [8] proposed a simple computational method to estimate the SCF of
finite width plates and cylinders with circular holes under uniaxial and biaxial tension for both isotropic and
orthotropic material. Zirka et al. [9] have analyzed stress concentration around circular hole in a rectangular plate
made of orthotropic and isotropic material under dynamic and static loading by using photo elastic method. Jain
and Mittal [10] analyzed the effect of diameter by width ratio on SCF in plates with circular holes under static
 Fig. 1: A Square plate with Central cut-out Fig. 2: Different cut-out shapes considered in this study

transverse load. Darwish et al. [11] used ANSYS to study SCF in orthotropic plates with countersunk rivet hole
and reported that maximum SCF occurs at countersunk edge.
Based on the literature survey it is seen that there is lack of suitable studies on SCF dependence on cutout
orientation of isotropic and especially orthotropic plates. A work strictly related to the current work is by the
author [12] for transverse load condition. The present work focuses on uniaxial loading in Part I and biaxial
loading in Part II. The study also encompasses the use of bluntness ratio. Rezaeepazhand and Jafari [13] in their
excellent article showed the analytical solutions for SCF vs. bluntness ratio variation for metallic plates. The
highlight of the present paper is to solve the problem in case of orthotropic plates.

2. FE Model & Validation

Table 1. Material Properties considered for the study

Ex Ey Ez Gxy Gxz Gyz µxy µxz µyz

(in GPa)
Mat 1 200 - - - - - 0.3 - -
Mat 2 44.7 17.9 17.9 8.96 8.96 3.45 0.25 0.25 0.34
Mat 3 39 8.6 8.6 3.8 3.8 3.8 0.28 0.28 0.28

A square plate of is modelled as shown in Fig 1. The objective is to study the SCF at the proximity of the cut out;
hence the plate is intentionally modelled as an infinite plate. The W/d ratio is kept as 10, where W is the width of
the plate and d is the diameter the hypothetical circle perfectly inscribed in the square or triangular cut-out. The
plate is loaded uniaxially in the X-direction by a uniform load of 1KN. This hypothetical circle is necessary to
describe the bluntness ratio as shown in Fig. 2. The various material properties that are considered are shown in
Table 1. The central cut-out (both square and triangular) is rotated by an angle θfrom the centre line of the square
cut-out in positive x axis as shown in Fig. 1.
Since it is a 3D analysis a 3D element- SOLID186 is selected from the ANSYS element library. The element has
both homogeneous Structural Solid and layered Structural Solid capabilities. When no shell section definition is
provided, the element is treated as single-layered and uses two integration points through the thickness. In this
work it is treated as a homogenous structural element. The element has 20 nodes with 3 Degrees of Freedom (U X,
UY, UZ) at each node.
Values of SCF (stress concentration factor) for a number of common stress raisers are given in tabulated form as
well as in form of analytical equations by Roark [14]. Elastic stress for a member with central circular hole in a
member of rectangular cross section under axial tension is given as,
2r 2 3
2r 2r
K t =3.00−3.13
W ( )
+3.13
W ( )
−3.13
W ( )
Where, r = radius of the circular hole, mm
W= width of the plate, mm
The results obtained from the above equation are reported to be within 2% of results obtained from photo elastic
models. For validation of the finite element meshed model a rectangular plate of 1500 mm x 1000 mm with a
central circular cut-out of radius 100 mm is selected and subjected to 1000 N tensile load. The SCF is calculated as
σ max
Kt=
σ nominal
Where, σ nominalis 1000 MPa. SCF obtained from the present finite element model is 2.528 whereas analytical value
for the same problem is calculated as 2.508 from equation 8. Excellent convergence is seen and calculated error is
less than 1%. A detailed study on convergence of SCF of thin plates using a similar element and similar mesh
properties under tensile load has been carried by the author(s) in detail and in all cases a convergence of +/- 1%
within the solutions of closed form equations was reported [12, 15]. Hence, the same FE model is used throughout
the analysis. An ANSYS APDL code file is generated to conduct the numerical parametric experiments. In total
approximately 800 numerical runs were conducted for uniaxial loading and biaxial loading.

3. Results and Discussion

The stress concentration factor is calculated by using the APDL code. Fig. 3 shows the relation of SCF with
bluntness ratio for a square plate having a square cut out at the centre. The study is conducted for three materials as
listed out in Table 1.
It is seen that the orthotropic materials (Mat 2 & Mat 3) in general have higher SCF as compared to the isotropic
material (Mat 1). The isotropic plate has a SCF of 2 at bluntness ratio 0.0. It simply means that the square cut-out
has no fillet. With inclusion of bluntness ratio the SCF of the isotropic plate goes on decreasing rapidly until
r/R=0.4 beyond which the effect eases out a little and the reduction in SCF is not as drastic. It is interesting to
observe that for all the three plates any bluntness ratio beyond 0.5 has a similar effect. Fig. 4 shows the effect of
bluntness ratio on SCF for square plates with triangular holes. For an isotropic plate with triangular cut-out the
SCF at zero bluntness ratios is 3.2. The SCF for Mat 2 and Mat 3 plates with triangular cut-out at zero bluntness
ratios is 7.2 and 4.8 respectively. For triangular cut-out the bluntness ratio has very pronounced effect. With
increase in bluntness ratio the SCF decreases steeply.
 Fig. 3. SCF vs. bluntness ratio of square cut out Fig. 4. SCF vs. bluntness ratio of triangular cut out
The square cut-out modelled in the 3D plate is rotated to find the influence of orientation of square cut-out on SCF.
It is seen (Fig. 5) that as orientation angle θ is increased SCF increases monotonically till 40 o and drops a little at
45o. The SCF of the plate made of material 1 has a minimum SCF of 2 at 0 o and a maximum SCF of 6 at 40 [Link]
the cut-out is a square one, it would mean that at 0 o and 90o the stresses will be same, similarly for 5 o and 85o i.e.
the orientation effects are complimentary. However for the sake of understanding and visual clarity complete polar
plots are made. It is well known practice to provide small fillets to reduce the SCF. The utility of such fillets on
SCF of a square cut-out oriented at angle θ is also studied. Equidistant values of bluntness ratio are considered. It is
seen that a small bluntness ratio of 0.2 reduces the SCF drastically. However the increasing trend of SCF with
increase in orientation angle remains same as before. Maximum SCF in this case is observed at 45 o. As the
bluntness ratio is increased still some reduction in the SCF is seen. However this decrease in SCF with increase in
bluntness ratio is not as appreciable as between bluntness ratio 0.0 and 0.2.
Fig. 6 shows the effect of bluntness ratio and rotation angle θ on SCF for square plates with triangular holes. Here
since an equilateral triangular cut-out is considered, it would mean that at 0o and 120o the stresses will be same,
similarly for 5o and 125o i.e. the orientation effects are complimentary. SCF for triangular cut-out is about 3.0 at 0o
orientation angle and is minimum at 60 o. The orientation angles do not have much effect on the SCF and it ranges
between 2.5 to 3.2. The inclusion of bluntness in the triangular cut-out reduces the SCF. This decrease in SCF is
almost linearly proportional to increase in bluntness ratio. Though in general orientation angles do not show
significant effect on the SCF in Fig. 6, an unusual spike in SCF at 10 o for bluntness ratio 0.2 is seen. This might be
due to a discrepancy in the model, however this spike was seen even after a number of test simulations were run on
the particular model using several refined meshes. An analytical treatment of the problem is very difficult; hence
the authors conclude it to be part of the geometry and material combination behaviour.
Fig. 5. SCF vs. Square cut out orientation for Mat 1 Fig. 6. SCF vs. Triangular cut out orientation for Mat 1
Fig. 7 shows the effect of orientation of square cut-out on SCF of the plate made out of material 2. The SCF
pattern for material 2 is similar to that of material [Link] the intensity of SCF is much higher in material 2
which is an orthotropic material. The SCF is 5.15 at 0 o and goes on increasing monotonically till 30 o where SCF is
16.5 for bluntness ratio 0.0. Similarly like material 1 global peak of SCF is observed at θ =45o. It is understood
from the figure that a small bluntness ratio of 0.2 reduces the SCF drastically. However the monotonic increase of
SCF with increase in orientation angle remains same as before. Maximum SCF in this case is observed at 45 o. As
the bluntness ratio is increased to r/R 0.4, 0.6 and 0.8 still some reduction in the SCF is seen. Here also the
decrease in SCF with increase in bluntness ratio is not as appreciable as between bluntness ratio 0.0 and 0.2.
Fig. 8 shows the effect of bluntness ratio and rotation angle Θ on SCF for square plates made of material 2 with
triangular holes. Here since an equilateral triangular cut-out is considered, it would mean that at 0o and 120o the
stresses will be same, similarly for 5 o and 125o i.e. the orientation effects are complimentary. SCF for triangular
cut-out is about 7.0 at 0o orientation angle and is minimum at 60 o. The orientation at 55o is mirror image of that at
65o; 50o is mirror image of 70o and so on. The orientation angles do not have much effect on the SCF and it
constantly ranges between 5.6 and 7.2. Here also the inclusion of bluntness in the triangular cut-out reduces the
SCF. This decrease in SCF is almost linearly proportional to increase in bluntness ratio.

Fig. 7. SCF vs. Square cut out orientation for Mat 2 Fig. 8. SCF vs. Triangular cut out orientation for Mat 2
The trend of polar plot in fig. 9 is similar to all the other polar plots for a square plate with central square cut-out.
This confirms that the orientation angle of a circular cut-out has significant influence on the SCF and it will always
rise with increase with tilt or orientation angle. The bluntness ratio can be successfully used to reduce this induced
SCF in the plate structure. A small bluntness ratio of 0.2 is easy to make in a manufacturing process and may come
handy as compared to larger bluntness ratio as the percentage reduction with r/R=0.2 as compared to higher
bluntness ratios is much more. On comparing Fig. 7 and Fig. 9 we find that the SCF in material 2 is higher than
material 3 though both of them are orthotropic. This is because the SCF of any orthotropic plate is a function of its
Ey/Ex ratio and SCF increases with increase in Ey/Ex ratio.
Fig. 10 shows the effect of bluntness ratio and rotation angle θ on SCF for square plates made of material 3 with
triangular holes. Here since an equilateral triangular cutout is considered, it would mean that at 0o and 120o the
stresses will be same, similarly for 5 o and 125o i.e. the orientation effects are complimentary. SCF for triangular
cutout is about 7.0 at 0o orientation angle and is minimum at 60 o. The orientation at 55o is mirror image of that at
65o; 50o is mirror image of 70o and so on. The orientation angles do not have much effect on the SCF and it
constantly ranges between 3.6 and 5.0. Here also the inclusion of bluntness in the triangular cutout reduces the
SCF almost linearly.

Fig. 9. SCF vs. Square cut out orientation for Mat 3 Fig. 10. SCF vs. Triangular cut out orientation for Mat 3

4. Conclusion

From the current study the following conclusions can be drawn-

 Stress concentration is minimum in isotropic plate and maximum in plate made of material 2.
 The SCF for Isotropic material are not dependent on material properties. However it is dependent on the
shape, size, orientation and location of the cut out.
 For orthotropic material SCF depends on material properties. It increases with increase in E y/Ex ratio and
decreases with increase in µxy.
 The SCF increases monotonically till 30o and global peak of SCF is observed at θ =45o for plate with central
square cutout.
 r/R=0.2 is more effective in terms of percentage reduction in SCF as compared to higher bluntness ratios.
 The variation in SCF for plates with central triangular cutout is very minimal.
 The article provides an in-depth stress analysis on perforated plates. The analysis provides that by suitably
aligning the cutout the stress can be reduced. Also a small bluntness built into the cutout proves very effective.
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