When multiple flaws are offset flaws, alignment rules are used to determine whether the flaws should be treated as non-aligned or as coplanar. The alignment rules are provided in fitness-for-service codes, and the rules are based on comparison of flaw dimensions. Quasi-static tensile tests were performed on Type 304 stainless steel flat plate specimens with two dissimilar through-wall offset flaws at ambient temperature. It can be seen that, in the experiments, plastic collapse loads were independent of non-alignment dimensions, when the counterpart flaw lengths are smaller enough compared with the main flaw lengths.
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