The Schwarz alternating method, along with Muskhelishvili’s complex potential method, is used to calculate the stresses around non-intersecting circular holes in an infinite isotropic plate subjected to in-plane loads at infinity. The holes may have any size and may be disposed in any manner in the plate, and the loading may be in any direction.
Complex Fourier series, whose coefficients are calculated using numerical integration, are incorporated within a Mathematica program for the determination of the tangential stress around any of the holes. The stress values obtained are then compared to published results in the literature and to results obtained using the finite element method.
It is found that part of the results generated by the authors do not agree with some of the published ones, specifically, those pertaining to the locations and magnitudes of certain maximum stresses occurring around the contour of holes in a plate containing two holes at close proximity to each other. This is despite the fact that the results from the present authors’ procedure have been verified several times by finite element calculations.
The object of this paper is to present and discuss the results calculated using the authors’ method and to underline the discrepancy mentioned above.
