Evaluation of flexural strength of finite width structures

Engineers are mostly worried about the brittle fracture because the brittle fractures bring most devastating accidents and happen rapidly, and usually the brittle fractures take place when the applied stress increases such that the stress state at the crack tip reaches a critical value. Various machine components and structures are there which had to bear large amount of weight imposed on it. Due to this the flexural stresses are generated in the components. Since these components are combined with others using bolts etc. thereby generating the zone of stress concentration near the holes of the component. Hence the paper aims in determining the zone of stress concentration and its influence on the plate strength along with the total deformation of the machine element.