Stress Analysis for an Orthotropic Plate with a General Shaped Hole

The complex variables function method was used for analyzing the stresses in an infinite orthotropic plate with a hole under uniform in-plane loadings at infinity. When the hole was hexagonal or irregular shaped, the stress distributions along/near the hole boundary were obtained for different fiber angles and loading directions. The research shows that the maximum tangential stress occurs on the hole boundary and exactly in the sharp corner point, when the fiber orientation angles are 0°and -90.0° and the uniaxial loadings are perpendicular to the pointing direction of the sharp corner. However, the position of the maximum tangential stress will get farther from the sharp corner point with the rotating of the fiber orientation angles, and the magnitude of the maximum tangential stress decreases correspondingly. Therefore, the stress concentration of the orthotropic plate can be decreased by adjusting the fiber orientation angles. In addition, the tangential stresses at the intersections of the axis of the uniaxial loadings σ and the hole boundary are always exactly the same value -σ for the orthotropic plate. © 2018, Editorial Department of Journal of Tongji University. All right reserved.