The discussion on the application of theory of failure is in the context of assessment of the Margin of Safety, MoS, (FoS -1)

under static load up to Design Limit Load, DLL, up to which the structural behaviour is generally linearly elastic. In the context of aircraft structures designed to meet the applicable FAR 23 or FAR 25 compliance requirements, no permanent (plastic) deformations are allowed up to DLL; and the aircraft structure should withstand the Design Ultimate Load, DUL, for at least 3 Seconds before any structural collapse; implied in the latter statement is that the aircraft structure can, in fact, fail under DUL after 3 seconds of sustaining the DUL, and still the structure would deemed to have complied with the DUL requirement under FAR 25. One may recall, and as widely published, the Airbus-380 wing failure occurred much before the DUL. The compliance with the DUL test under FAR 25 has to be demonstrated through an ultimate load test only; any computational compliance is only to establish the confidence of the design/test group before the DUL test is actually carried out; the computational results will not be accepted by the regulatory authorities as proof of compliance of FAR 25 requirement (it was, however, accepted under FAR 23, and has been dispensed with under FAR 25). For ductile metallic structures the von Mises failure criterion is used to demonstrate the required MoS at DLL against the design allowable where the structural behaviour is elastic. The structural behaviour beyond DLL and up to DUL depends up on the structural design and the material stress-strain response of the material: it could be linearly elastic, nonlinearly elastic or even plastic (if the von Mises stress reaches the yield strength of the material before DUL is reached) or a combination of all of these. The stress engineer would continue the analysis of the structure beyond DLL by application of the appropriate analysis procedures by deploying the appropriate structural and material behaviour models for different sections of the load-stress response curve. The analysis of the structure under plastic behaviour is governed by the theory of plasticity, ToP, and is coded into many industry-standard FE codes. One needs, however, to have a sound knowledge of the ToP and the material stress-strain behaviour and its mathematical representation to deploy these analysis codes successfully for understanding the elastoplastic behaviour of the structure, and to endorse the structural safety up to DUL and stand by it till the successful DUL test. Normally, regions of high stress gradients like boundaries of cut-outs, re-entry corners, thickness discontinuities and bolt holes etc. need such a detailed elasto-plastic analysis. It may be noted that the material should have significant plastic strain at ultimate load (typical of a ductile material like 2023 Al-Cu alloy which has up to 5% plastic strain at DUL) to allow significant plastic strain at DUL to keep the maximum stress level below the material ultimate stress. The yield criterion to deploy, the flow rule etc. are matters of detail and material stress strain behaviour dependent. Of course, von Mises yield criterion is appropriate and de-facto for elasto-plastic response of ductile materials beyond the yield. The structural behaviour under fatigue loads (with or without cracks), DTA etc. are different and most important topics beyond the scope of the present topic under discussion. S. Sridhara Murthy