Three-Dimensional Stress Fields in Thick Orthotropic Plates with Sharply Curved Notches under In-Plane and Out-of-Plane Shear

In this paper, an analytical solution for the stress fields in the close neighbourhoods of radiused notches in thick orthotropic plates under shear loading and twisting is provided. In the first step, the equations of the three-dimensional theory of elasticity are successfully reduced to two uncoupled equations in two-dimensional space. Later, the 3D stress field solution for orthotropic plates with radiused notches is presented and its degree of accuracy is discussed by comparing theoretical results and numerical data from 3D FE analyses. The solution proposed can be satisfactorily used to characterise the stress field in plates made with polymeric composite materials, such as fibre-reinforced polymers and natural composites.