Failure of a steel plate containing a circular rivet hole with an emanating crack

Sudden catastrophic crack propagation in steel structures has led to numerous disasters. In civil engineering, collapse of temporary scaffolding occurs all the time in Hong Kong. Fatigue crack propagation is highly susceptible in these accidents. Although fracture mechanics has been developed quite substantially since 1920, the use of it among practitioners is not common, especially in the field of civil engineering. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to provide a simple example to illustrate how to use of the results of fracture mechanics in designing steel structures jointed by rivet systems. In particular, a finite steel strip containing a circular hole is under far field tension and near field rivet load. Elastic solution of stress concentration and the fracture mechanics solution on a radial crack emanating from the hole are utilized to estimate the yield as well as fracture strength. The critical size of the crack that leads to catastrophic fracture can be estimated. Fatigue crack growth is also incorporated into our analysis.