Collapse of elastic-plastic plates with cracks

In damage tolerant design and operation, structures are allowed to contain damage such as fatigue cracks.,As a result, it is important to be able to calculate the residual strength of structures in the presence of cracks. In many cases it is advantageous to study the response of simple structures to guide the analysis of more complex ones, especially if geometric and material nonlinearities are present. The investigation presented in this paper concentrated on the response and collapse of elastic-plastic aluminum 2024-T3 rectangular plates under uniaxial compression. The investigation was conducted numerically, using finite elements. The results indicate that cracks can reduce the residual strength of plates. Whereas the reduction is mild for plates with cracks near the centerline, it is severe for cracks that develop near the edges of the plate.