Effect of Cutout Orientation on Stress Concentration of Perforated Plates with Various Cutouts and Bluntness

Abstract

Perforated plates with cutouts (or holes) are widely used in structural members. These cutouts provide stress concentration in plates. Extensive studies have been carried out on stress concentration in perforated plates, which consider cutout shapes, boundary conditions, bluntness of cutouts, and more. This study presents stress concentration analyses of perforated plates with not only various cutouts and bluntness but also different cutout orientations. Especially, the effect of cutout orientation on stress concentration is emphasized since structural members have become more complicated recently. To obtain stress concentration patterns, a finite element program, ANSYS, is used. For the designated goal, three parameters are considered as follows: the shapes of polygonal cutouts (circle, triangle, and square), bluntness (a counter measure of radius ratio, r/R), and rotation of cutouts (<TEX>${\theta}$</TEX>). From the analyses, it is shown that, in general, as bluntness increases, the stress concentration increases, regardless of the shape and rotation. A more important finding is that the stress concentration increases as the cutouts become more oriented from the baseline, which is the positive horizontal axis (+x). This fact demonstrates that the orientation is also a relatively significant design factor to reduce stress concentration. In detail, in the case of the triangle cutout, orienting one side of the triangle cutout to be perpendicular to the applied tensile forces is preferable. Similarly, in the case of the square cutout, it is more advantageous to orient two sides of square cutout to be perpendicular to the applied tensile force. Therefore, at the design stage, determining the direction of a major tensile force is required. Then, by aligning those polygon cutouts properly, we can reduce stress concentration.