Reference load solutions for plates with semi-elliptical surface cracks subjected to biaxial tensile loading

•Reference yield stress solutions are provided for plates with surface flaws.•Tension, bending, combined tension-bending and biaxial loading are considered.•Biaxial loading solutions given in terms of first principal or equivalent stress.•Good approximation of J-integral for different crack sizes and loading conditions.•Less conservatism compared to existing solutions in the literature.

The yield or limit load is a key parameter with respect to the accuracy of flaw assessment based on R6 type procedures such as the R6 routine, the SINTAP and FITNET method, the standard BS 7910 and others. In a number of previous papers two of the present authors proposed the use of a reference load instead of the common limit load, which not only provided more exact fracture mechanics predictions, but showed also a wider and more general application range than the conventional parameter. Here the method has been extended to biaxial tensile loading and it has been successfully validated by a thorough comparison with finite element results and alternative solutions available in the literature.

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