Effects of Stress Raisers on
Strain Energy and Deformation

Deformation and deflection can be equally important failure modes to material breakage depending on the system, and any stress raisers will increase the likelihood of both. However, current texts and curriculum emphasize only the increased chance of breakage due to stress concentration at the raiser without quantifying or sometimes even considering the increased effects on deformation and deflection. This thesis aims to derive and formulate “strain energy concentration factors” which would be applied in similar fashion to existing stress concentration factors" to relate the strain energy near the raiser vs if it was a simple beam. In conjunction with Castigliano’s Second Theorem, the effects on deflection can easily be obtained. Strain energy concentration factors will be obtained for notched and stepped stress raisers on rectangular and cylindrical beams under combined loading through a combination of mathematical and finite element analysis.