Elastic stress distributions in finite size plates with edge notches

In fatigue crack growth analysis it is essential to know the stress distributions in the neighbourhood of stress raisers. If such distributions ahead of the uncracked notch are known, stress intensity factors may be obtained via the weight function or other methods. The procedure described in the present paper reconsiders the principal elastic stress expressions already reported by the authors for infinite plates with semi-infinite symmetric V-shaped notches and adapts them to some practical cases, in which the mutual influence of the notches as well as that of the plate finite size play an important role in stress distributions. The aim is therefore to give an approximate close-form solution for the longitudinal stress, valid for the entire ligament length, namely from notch tip to notch tip. Theoretical and numerical stress values are compared on this line, examining plates with semicircular, V and U-shaped notches subjected to remote uniaxial tension. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.