Here's a pattern that comes up more than it should. An engineer sizes a padeye, runs the checks, finds the bearing stress is too high. So they add cheek plates — welded plates either side of the main plate that increase the area around the pin hole. The utilisation ratio drops. The calculation passes. The engineer moves on.
Three weeks later, a checker spots that the shear-out check still fails. Adding the cheek plates didn't help it at all. The main plate was always the problem, and the cheek plates were never going to fix it.
This happens because cheek plates only count for two of the five DNV-ST-0378 utilisation checks. For the other three, only the main plate thickness matters. If you're adding cheek plates to a padeye that's failing shear-out or weld checks, you're adding steel in the wrong place.
Padeye anatomy: where the cheek plates sit
Before looking at the checks, it helps to be clear on the geometry. A welded padeye has a main plate (the structural backbone, welded to the structure) and optional cheek plates — smaller plates fillet-welded to each face of the main plate, centred on the pin hole. They add thickness locally without changing the overall plate height or outer radius.
Which checks include cheek plates — and which don't
DNV-ST-0378 Appendix E defines five checks for a welded padeye. Here's how cheek plates feature in each:
| Check | Clause | Cheek plates count? | What governs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pin hole bearing stress | §E.4.2 | ✓ Yes | dpin × (tmain + 2tcheek) |
| Net section through pin hole | §E.4.3 | ✓ Yes | Net area includes cheek plate contribution |
| Main plate shear-out | §E.4.4 | ✗ No | Main plate only: 2(Router − rhole)tmain |
| Combined stress at hole edge | §E.4.5 | ✗ No | Stress state in main plate at hole periphery |
| Cheek plate weld throat | §E.4.3 | — Own check | The cheek plate weld itself must be sized |
The bearing check §E.4.2 is specifically designed to benefit from cheek plates — the area resisting pin bearing pressure is the full stack: main plate plus both cheek plates. Add 2× 20 mm cheek plates to a 40 mm main plate and your bearing area triples. That check responds well to cheek plates.
Shear-out §E.4.4 is different. The failure mode is the plate shearing out on both sides of the pin hole — and this happens through the main plate only, regardless of what's welded to its face. The cheek plates don't contribute to shear capacity because they're not in the load path for that failure mode.
A concrete example
Take a padeye with: main plate t = 30 mm, outer radius R = 120 mm, pin hole r = 38 mm, design load F = 280 kN.
Before cheek plates — shear-out utilisation:
After adding 20 mm cheek plates — shear-out utilisation:
Now do the same exercise for bearing stress and the numbers change — correctly. Cheek plates fix bearing. They do not fix shear-out.
What actually fixes shear-out
If shear-out is the governing failure, your options are:
- Increase the main plate thickness
- Increase the outer radius (move the pin hole centre closer to the plate edge — this increases Router − rhole)
- Reduce the pin hole size (decrease rhole) — though this is often constrained by the shackle
What doesn't fix shear-out: adding cheek plates, increasing cheek plate thickness, or making the cheek plates larger in plan.
The weld check people forget
When cheek plates are added, a new check appears that isn't always calculated: the cheek plate weld throat §E.4.3. The fillet weld between the cheek plate and main plate must be sized to transfer the load the cheek plate carries. The minimum weld throat depends on the weld classification per DNV-ST-0378 Table E-1, and in most cases full penetration is required when the cheek plate thickness exceeds a certain limit.
The quick sanity check
Before adding cheek plates to a padeye, ask: which check is failing? If the answer is bearing stress or net section — cheek plates are the right tool. If the answer is shear-out, combined hole-edge stress, or weld capacity — fix the main plate geometry or weld size instead. Cheek plates won't help, and they add fabrication complexity and an extra weld to inspect.
- DNV-ST-0378 Ed. 2021 — Appendix E: Padeye Design, §E.4.2–E.4.5 (bearing stress, net section, shear-out, combined stress, weld throat checks)
- DNV-ST-0378 §5 — Material requirements and certificate classes for lifting appliances
- ISO 2553:2019 — Welding and allied processes: Symbolic representation on drawings (weld symbol requirements for cheek plate fillet welds)
- The shear-out area formula A = 2(Router − rhole) × tmain and limit τ ≤ fy/√3 are derived directly from App. E equations; numerical values in this article use S355 (fy = 355 MPa per EN 10025-2 Table 1) with no additional factors applied.
Run the Five Checks Instantly
The Leide padeye calculator runs all five DNV-ST-0378 Appendix E checks — bearing, net section, shear-out, combined stress, and weld throat — with clause citations. Enter your geometry and get utilisation ratios in seconds.