The Effect of Biaxial Loading on the Limit Load of Cracked Plates

To address the issue of the lack of guidance in fitness-for-service codes [1], [2], for biaxial and triaxial effects on fracture, this paper expands on results presented at PVP 2014 [3] for a centre cracked plate by including the effect of plate length and then presents results for single edge and double edge cracked plates. The results demonstrate that load biaxiality can have a significant effect on the limit load and the crack driving force; reducing the limit load and increasing the crack driving force relative to that for uniaxial loading for negative biaxiality and high positive biaxiality but increasing the limit load and reducing the crack driving force for some intermediate levels close to equibiaxial loading.