Stress analysis of tapered steel plate with rectangular hole under tensile and compressive loading by finite element method

Buckling beheviours of thin St37 steel plates under the tensile and compressive loading in which they have rectangular holes at the middle were examined in this study. The analyses were performed with the finite element commercial code ANSYS11. The critical stress distributions around the rectangular holes were obtained by the application of tensile and compressive loadings in the consideration of buckling analysis. This study includes the analyses of uniform tensile loading and linear static buckling analysis solutions. The thickness of the plate were increased linearly starting from the loaded side of the plate through the around of the hole. As it is seen as these type of tapered plates, stress concentrations around the hole were reduced and by this way these regions became safety. The determination of the most suitable plate thickness in the design part of this study were obtained by using the 31718 mesh elements for the plates under tensile loading while 4144 mesh elements were used for the buckling analysis of plates under compression. According to its tapered structure, new designed steel plate economizes from its material and the total weight of the body. The selected tapered geometry has a linearly reducing cross sectional area through the longitudional direction of the plate and this gives a continuous surface to the body.As a result of this, the generation of the other stress localization regions were prescribed.