Application of Fracture Mechanics to the Calculation of Deflections in Stepped Structural Elements

Deflections of structural elements are determined frequently by using simple engineering strength of materials approaches. However, when geometric discontinuties are present, such approaches may lead to excessive errors in the predicted deflection. The present paper suggests a simple technique for refining these deflection predictions using available fracture mechanics data. Use of such techniques leads to predictions which do not differ significantly from “exact” solutions.