Bending of a highly stretched plate containing an eccentrically plate-reinforced circular hole

In this paper, we consider the problem of finding the stress distribution in a highly stretched plate containing a circular hole that is eccentrically reinforced by thickening the plate, on one side only, in an annular region concentric with the hole. A solution of the nonlinear Kármán plate equations is obtained that is asymptotically valid for large membrane stresses. We show that, except for a narrow bending boundary layer in the neighbourhood of the boundary between the reinforced area and the rest of the plate, a state of plane stress prevails and the reinforced area undergoes a transverse deflection that brings its middle surface into the plane of the middle surface of the plate.