Hot spot along corner curvature of rectangular plate opening

Development of stress concentration in the corner zone of rectangular plate opening is a well-known fact. It is usually literally taken that the largest stress concentration factor (SCF) occurs exactly in the corner (at angle coordinate of 45 degrees in case of square opening). More rigorous analyses, however, reveal that this is not perfectly true. Although maximum stress never really "leaves the corner", for some hot-spot analyses, more scrupulous investigation of this phenomenon has significance. In this paper, results of some analytical, numerical and experimental investigations of this topic, for plate in tension, are presented and compared.