A global limit load solution for plates containing embedded off-set rectangular cracks under combined biaxial force/stress and through-thickness bending

A global limit load solution for plates containing embedded off-set rectangular cracks under combined biaxial force/stress and through-thickness bending moment is derived based on the lower bound limit load theorem and the Mises criterion under a plane stress assumption. The limit load solution is validated using 3D elastic-perfectly plastic finite element (FE) analyses. The results show that the predictions using the solution developed in this paper are close to the FE results and slightly conservative. From the solution, limit load solutions for some other defect types in plates, such as extended surface cracks, through-thickness cracks, off-set extended embedded cracks and surface cracks under combined bi-axial force/stress and through-thickness bending are obtained.