Stress concentration factor due to a functionally graded ring around a hole in an isotropic plate

The aim of this work is to present an analytical solution to reduce the stress concentration factor (SCF) around a circular hole in an isotropic homogeneous plate subjected to far-field uniaxial loading. In this paper the elastic response of an inhomogeneous annular ring made of functionally graded material (FGM), inserted around a hole of a homogeneous plate, is studied. By assuming that Young’s modulus varies in the radial direction with power law and that Poisson’s ratio is constant, the governing differential equations for plane stress conditions are obtained. Using stress function a general solution in explicit closed form is presented and the SCF investigated to highlight the inhomogeneity effects. Furthermore, the explicit solution for an inner homogeneous ring, with different properties with respect to those of the plate, is explicitly obtained and numerical results are compared between homogeneous ring and FGM ring.