A Limit Load Solution for Anisotropic Welded Cracked Plates in Pure Bending

Abstract

The present paper’s main objective is to derive a simple upper bound solution for a welded plate in pure bending. The plate contains a crack located in the weld. Both the weld and base materials are orthotropic. Hill’s quadratic yield criterion is adopted. The solution is semi-analytic. A numerical method is only required for minimizing a function of two independent variables. Six independent dimensionless parameters classify the structure. Therefore, the complete parametric analysis of the solution is not feasible. However, for a given set of parameters, the numerical solution is straightforward, and the numerical method is fast. A numerical example emphasizes the effect of plastic anisotropy and the crack’s location on the bending moment at plastic collapse. In particular, the bending moment for the specimen having a vertical axis of symmetry is compared with that of the asymmetric specimen. It is shown that the latter is smaller for all considered cases. The solution found can be used in conjunction with flaw assessment procedures.