Journal of Constructional Steel Research 52 (1999) 159–170 www.elsevier.com/locate/jcsr Stress concentration factor in plates with transverse butt-weld misalignment Weicheng Cui a,* , Zhengquan Wan b , Alaa E. Mansour c a School of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200030, People’s Republic of China b China Ship Scientific Research Center, P.O. Box 116, Wuxi, Jiangsu 214082, People’s Republic of China c Department of Naval Architecture and Offshore Engineering, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA Received 21 July 1998; accepted 15 April 1999 Abstract Misalignment at butt-welded joints induces bending stresses with the application of in-plane loads only. This stress concentration will have a detrimental effect on both the ultimate strength of the plate and the fatigue strength at the weld. The stress concentration factor is often rep- resented as K = 1 + C(e/t), where C is called the stress concentration coefficient in this paper. In the current literature it is found that different values of C have been used, none of which were derived by the plate theory. In this paper, a linear elastic stress analysis of ship plates with a tranverse butt-weld misalignment under uniaxial compression is carried out. It is found that the stress concentration coefficient C is not a constant, but varies with the aspect ratio, the location of the misalignment in the plate and the magnitude of the nominal applied stress.  1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Plate; Misalignment; Stress concentration factor; Uniaxial compression Nomenclature a plate length b plate width C stress concentration coefficient anywhere in the plate * Corresponding author. 0143-974X/99/$ - see front matter  1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII:S0143-974X(99)00019-X