In many structures, cracks may appear during manufacturing process or in service. Stress intensity factor is used in fracture mechanics to more accurately predict the stress state (stress intensity) near the tip of the crack caused by remote load or residual stresses. In this work a rectangular plate with central hole & two cracks emanating from his hole is analyzed for remote tensile loading. Stress Intensity Factor is determined for this configuration using finite element based software

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... This value is compared with the one obtained by analytical method. Then hole as a stress reducing feature is studied. The effect of hole location, hole size on the stress intensity factor is studied. Feasibility of pressurized hole as a stress reducing feature is studied for the best hole location & size obtained earlier. Further variation in the pressure was done to study effect of pressurized hole.