Bolted Joints in tension

Can be disassembled without destructive methods Strong enough to resist tensile and shear loads The bolt here, has been preloaded to an initial tensile load Fi Preload places the bolted member components in compression
Provides better resistance to tensile load Creates friction force to resist shear load

An external load P and external shear load Ps are then applied on the joint Final bolt tension Fb is not affected by the shear load, Ps

Portion of a bolted joint

Analysis of bolted joints

Deflection of a bar in simple tension, = Fl/(AE)

= deflection, F = force, l = length, A = area, E = modulus of

elasticity Therefore, stiffness constant, k = F/ = AE/l When an external load P is applied to the bolted connection, the bolt, initially in tension, gets longer The compression in the connected members gets decreased The increase in deformation of the bolt is,

b Pb k b
The decrease in deformation of the connected members is,

m Pm km
If the members are not separated,

i.e.

Pb Pm kb k m

b m

Analysis of bolted joints (Contd)

Since P = Pb + Pm , we have, kb P Pb kb km Therefore the resultant load on the bolt is, kb P Fb Pb Fi Fi kb km Similarly, the resultant load in the connected members is, km P Fm Fi kb km
The above equations hold only when some of the initial compression remains in the connected members. If the external force is large enough to remove this compression completely, the members will separate and the entire load will be carried by the bolt, i.e., Fm = 0

Analysis of bolted joints (Contd)

b and m are the deformations of the bolt and the members respectively When an external load is applied, m is reduced by m and b is increased by the same amount b = m
Thus, the load on the bolt increases and the load in the members decreases

Gasketed Joints
When there are more members included in the grip of the bolt, they act like compressive springs in series Total spring rate is given by,
1 1 1 1 1 ...... k m k1 k 2 k 3 ki

If one of the members is a soft gasket, its stiffness relative to the other members is usually very small
So, for all practical purposes, deflection of other members can be neglected

Gasketed Joints
There are three basic gasket configurations
Unconfined gasket (fig. (a) )
It is subject to the full compressive load between the members Stiffness of the metal parts within the bolt grip can be considered to be infinite Design of the connection is based on the stiffness of the gasket

O ring or confined gasket (fig. (b) )

The members have metal to metal contact (no separation) and the previous analysis holds

Confined gasket in which the seal is achieved by compressing the gasket (fig. (c) )

Gasketed Joints (Contd)

A gasketed joint must be designed to satisfy all the usual requirements for preload. Moreover, the preload must be large enough to achieve the minimum sealing pressure required for the gasket material. i.e.,

Fi Ag po

, where Ag is the gasket area and po is the minimum gasket seal pressure

The resultant clamping load in a bolted connection is given by,

Fm km P Fi kb k m P(1 C ) Fi , where C is given by C kb kb k m

where P is the external tensile load per bolt.

In a gasketed joint, this clamping load must satisfy the relation,

Fi Ag mp ,

where m is called the gasket factor (analogous to a factor of safety), which varies from 2 to 4 for most materials p is the internal pressure which tends to separate the joint