An Accurate Limit Load Solution for an Anisotropic Highly Undermatched Tension Specimen with a Crack

Plastic anisotropy significantly influences the behavior of structures subjected to various loading conditions. The extremum principles in the theory of rigid plastic solids are convenient and reliable tools for plastic design. The present paper combines the upper bound theorem and Hill’s quadratic yield criterion for orthotropic materials to evaluate the plastic collapse load of a highly undermatched welded tensile panel with a crack in the weld. The base material is supposed to be rigid. The shape of the crack is quite arbitrary. The orientation of the principal axes of anisotropy varies through the thickness of the weld. The upper bound solution is based on an exact solution for a layer of an anisotropic material. This feature of the upper bound solution is advantageous for increasing its accuracy. A numerical treatment is only necessary to find the solution for the uncracked specimen. This specimen has two axes of symmetry, which simplifies the solution. Simple analytic formulae transform this solution into a solution for the cracked specimens with one axis of symmetry and no symmetry. It is shown that the through-thickness distribution of anisotropic properties significantly affects the limit load.

Lower Bound Solution of Foundation Bearing Capacity beneath Strip Footing Based on Parabolic Mohr Failure Criterion

The static allowable stress field of foundation under strip foundation is constructed by means of stress columns, and the calculation method of the lower bound foundation bearing capacity based on the two-parameter parabolic Mohr yield criterion is proposed. Moreover, the influence of the amount of stress columns and material mechanical parameters on the lower bound bearing capacity is analyzed. The results show that a better solution can be obtained by optimizing the static allowable stress field. However, the improvement of lower bound solution might be inefficient if the stress column amount is large enough. The stresses of the superimposition area show a reduction with the improvement of stress field; on the other hand, the superposed stresses are enhanced ever faster as the involved stress column increases. The tensile-compressive strength ratio has a moderate effect on the lower bound solution. Finally, the reliability of the proposed method is verified by some rock foundation loading tests.

Lower-Bound Solution of Foundation-Bearing Capacity under Circular Uniformly Distributed Load

The semispatial static allowable stress field was constructed by three-dimensional stress columns, and the analytical lower-bound solution of bearing capacity of Mohr–Coulomb foundation beneath circular uniformly distributed load was put forward for the first time. The influence of the amount of stress columns and soil shear strength parameters on the lower-bound solution of the foundation-bearing capacity is analyzed. The research showed that (1) when the number of stress columns is more than 9 (n > 4) and the friction angle is less than 30°, the relative error between the lower-bound solution of the bearing capacity and exact solution is less than 6.6%, (2) the suggested analytical solution is applicable for common clayey materials; thus, the application scope of the analytical lower-bound solution is further expanded, and (3) the influence of cohesion on bearing capacity is linear. However, with the increase of the friction angle, the bearing capacity increases faster and faster under all cohesion levels. The correctness and effectiveness of the proposed method were verified by literature comparison.