Plane stress-plastic collapse loads for tapered cantilevers and haunched beams

Slip-line fields are proposed for the incipient collapse of tapered cantilevers yielding under combined axial and shear tip loading for plane stress conditions. These are then extended to fixed-ended haunched beams with uniformly distributed or concentrated central loading. Optimization for minimum material use is also considered. All the collapse load results for various taper angles are presented in the form of design curves and some results are compared with those applying for plane strain conditions.