Buckling and fracture behaviour of cracked thin plates under shear loading

Thin-walled structural components are widely used in several engineering applications such as in aerospace, naval, nuclear power plant, pressure vessel, mechanical and civil fields. Since they are frequently characterised by a high slenderness, the safety assessment of such structural components requires to carefully consider the buckling collapse which can heavily limit their allowable bearing capacity. For very thin plates, buckling collapse can occur under compression, shear, or even under tension. In the present paper, the buckling and fracture collapse mechanisms in an elastic rectangular thin-plate with a central straight crack under shear loading are analysed. Different boundary conditions, crack length and orientation are considered. Through a parametric finite elements (FE) numerical analysis, the crack sensitivity of the collapse load of such a structural component is examined. The obtained results are discussed, and some interesting and useful conclusions are drawn. The collapse mechanism occurring earlier (buckling or fracture) is found by varying the fracture toughness of the material, and some failure-type maps depending on the geometrical parameters of the crack are determined.