Pelamis Bolt Preload

User Guide
An ABAQUS/CAE GUI Plug-in to apply preload to all
instances of a bolt in assembly simultaneously
Version 1.0

Dr Richard Craven
March 2014

Pelamis Materials Database User Guide

Contents

Contents ............................................................................................................................. 2

Table of Figures .................................................................................................................. 3

Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 4

Licensing ............................................................................................................................. 4

Prerequisites ...................................................................................................................... 4
5.1

Abaqus Prerequisites .................................................................................................. 4

5.2

User Prerequisites ....................................................................................................... 4

Launching Pelamis Bolt Preload ......................................................................................... 5

Parts ................................................................................................................................... 7

Preload Surface .................................................................................................................. 8

Bolt Axis.............................................................................................................................. 9

10 Fix at Current Length Step ............................................................................................... 10

11 Preload ............................................................................................................................. 10
11.1

Size and Grade ....................................................................................................... 11

11.2

User Defined .......................................................................................................... 11

12 OK, Apply and Cancel ....................................................................................................... 12

13 Bolts Database ................................................................................................................. 12
13.1

Structure ................................................................................................................ 13

13.2

Adding Bolts or Grades .......................................................................................... 14

Bibliography ............................................................................................................................. 15
Appendix A: Known Issues ....................................................................................................... 16
I.

No Known Issues to Date .......................................................................................... 16

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2 Table of Figures

Figure 5-1: Pelamis BP Menu Location ...................................................................................... 5

Figure 5-2: Pelamis BP No Parts Error........................................................................................ 5
Figure 5-3: Pelamis BP No Part Instances Error ......................................................................... 5
Figure 5-4: Pelamis BP Only Initial Step Created Error .............................................................. 6
Figure 5-5: Pelamis BP Plug-in ................................................................................................... 6
Figure 5-6: Pelamis BP Step Creation Warning .......................................................................... 7
Figure 6-1: Bolted Assembly ...................................................................................................... 7
Figure 6-2: Pelamis BP Part selection ........................................................................................ 7
Figure 7-1: M16 x 120 Bolt Part with Preload Surface Defined ................................................. 8
Figure 7-2: Pelamis BP Choose Preload Surface ........................................................................ 8
Figure 7-3: Part with No internal surface Error Message .......................................................... 9
Figure 8-1: Choose Axis Pelamis BP ........................................................................................... 9
Figure 8-2: Visualising Bolt Preload Axis .................................................................................. 10
Figure 9-1: Fix Current Length Step Pelamis BP....................................................................... 10
Figure 10-1: Preload definition option .................................................................................... 11
Figure 10-2: Bolt Size selection Pelamis BP ............................................................................. 11
Figure 10-3: Bolt Grade selection Pelamis BP .......................................................................... 11
Figure 10-4: User defined Preload Pelamis BP ........................................................................ 12
Figure 11-1: Model with Bolt Preload Applied ........................................................................ 12

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3 Introduction
This document is a user guide for the use of the Pelamis Bolt Preload. (Pelamis BP) tool
within Abaqus. This tool is a plug-in to the Abaqus GUI written using python and the Abaqus
GUI customisation FX toolkit. No knowledge of python is required to use this tool although
knowledge of Abaqus and creating models is assumed. This user guide will step through how
to use the preload tool, to apply preload to all instances of a bolt part in an assembly in one
go rather than applying each bolt preload individually.

4 Licensing
This software is made available under the MIT / X window System License.
Copyright 2014 Pelamis Wave Power Ltd
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining
a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
"Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to
permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to
the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall
included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

be

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,

EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS
FOR
A
PARTICULAR
PURPOSE
AND
NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS
BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN
ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN
CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.

5 Prerequisites
This section covers the assumed pre-requisites of the user and Abaqus installation.

5.1 Abaqus Prerequisites

Abaqus 6.13-1 installed, this plug-in may work on other versions of Abaqus but has not been
tested.

5.2 User Prerequisites

A basic understanding of constructing models in Abaqus and an understanding of the
concept of preloading bolts.

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6 Launching Pelamis Bolt Preload

To launch the Pelamis BD the user needs to be in the Load module of Abaqus, then the tool
can be accessed from the Plug-ins > Pelamis > Bolt Preload menu, Figure 6-1.

Figure 6-1: Pelamis BP Menu Location

The plug-in will check that the requirements for the plug-in are in place before launching the
gui, and if not will display a dialogue box informing the user of what they need to do before
running the Pelamis BP again. The first check is to check that parts actually exist in the
model, otherwise the following error will be raised, Figure 6-2.

Figure 6-2: Pelamis BP No Parts Error

The second check will check that there are part instances in the assembly and if there are
none will raise this error, Figure 6-3.

Figure 6-3: Pelamis BP No Part Instances Error

The final check is that steps have been created, other than the initial step, as the step where
the bolt length is fixed needs to be defined, if only the initial step is defined, the following
error is raised, Figure 6-4.

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Figure 6-4: Pelamis BP Only Initial Step Created Error

The Pelamis BD dialog box will then launch and the plug-in menu will look like this, Figure
6-5.

Figure 6-5: Pelamis BP Plug-in

If no preload step was defined prior to running the Pelamis BP, then the plug-in will create a
preload step as the first step after initial and the only step where preload can currently be
applied within Abaqus, and a warning message will inform you that this step has been
created, Figure 6-6.

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Figure 6-6: Pelamis BP Step Creation Warning

The plug in is laid out to guide you step by step through the processes of choosing the part,
picking the internal surface to apply preload too, and the axis along which to apply preload.
The step in the model at which to fix the length of the bolt having applied the preload and
the preload itself, either by specifying bolt size and grade, or by entering preload directly in
Newtons.

7 Parts
The user should have created a part which represents the bolt within the model, and placed
this in the assembly, in every location where this bolt will be used, Figure 7-1. This bolt can
then be selected from the drop down list of parts in the Pelamis BP plugin, .

Figure 7-1: Bolted Assembly

Figure 7-2: Pelamis BP Part selection

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This will then allow the preload defined to be applied to all 20 instances of this part M16 x
120 in the assembly.

8 Preload Surface
The preload surface is an internal surface to the bolt, across which the preload force is
applied; this should be created as a surface feature of the bolt part, prior to running the
Pelamis BP plug-in. This surface can be anywhere along the shaft of the bolt, but should be
outside of the region of the shaft that is tied to the bolt hole/nut. When picking the surface
for the preload, the options are Purple and Brown, Brown should always be selected, Figure
8-1.

Figure 8-1: M16 x 120 Bolt Part with Preload Surface Defined

While the part M16 x 120 clearly has 3 surfaces defined for different purposed, Figure 8-1,
only the Preload surface appears in the list of surfaces in the Pelamis BP, Figure 8-2, as the
plug-in has an built in check for internal surfaces and only lists the internal surfaces, as
preload has to be applied to an internal surface on the bolt.

Figure 8-2: Pelamis BP Choose Preload Surface

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Choosing a part without an internal surface will result in the following message, Figure 8-3,
asking the user to either pick another part, or create the required internal preload surface
and re run the Pelamis BP.

Figure 8-3: Part with No internal surface Error Message

9 Bolt Axis
The axis is the axis along which the bolt preload is applied; generally this should be
perpendicular to the preload surface and along the axis of the bolt. The datum axes in
Abaqus parts are numbered, where 1 is for the part global X axis, 2 is for the part global Y
axis and 3 is for the part global Z axis, 4 and higher are for user defined axes. If the bolt part
has been created as a revolved solid part, then the axis of revolution will typically be 1 or 2.
If the user has created the bolt as an extrusion and defined a custom axis then this is likely
to be 4 or higher.
The Pelamis BP will list all of the available axes in the selected part in the drop down list for
Axis in the Choose Axis box, Figure 9-1, allowing the preload axis to be selected.

Figure 9-1: Choose Axis Pelamis BP

Currently there is no way of visualising which axis in the list equates to which axis on the
bolt part, whilst selecting the axis, although this may be implemented in a future version of
the tool. However, once the preloads have been created for the bolt instances, it is possible
to select an individual bolt preload and visualise both the datum axis and surface preload.
By selecting one of the Bolt Preloads from the loads container in the tree, Figure 9-2.

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Figure 9-2: Visualising Bolt Preload Axis

10 Fix at Current Length Step

A bolted analysis requires a multi-step solution, even for a single load case application, this
is because the first step, is equivalent to torqueing/tightening the bolts of the assembly
prior to loading the part. As previously mentioned the bolt preload has to be applied in the
first step after the initial step in the analysis. This equates to the torqueing of the bolts, then
in subsequent steps, the force can continue to be applied, or the bolt length can be fixed.
i.e. assuming it has been tightened to the correct preload and left. The fix at current length
option allows the user to specify which of subsequent steps after preload that the bolt
length should be fixed at. In the drop down step list, only steps in the analysis that are
subsequent to initial and preload are listed, Figure 10-1.

Figure 10-1: Fix Current Length Step Pelamis BP

11 Preload
The bolt preload can be defined in two ways within the Pelamis BP plug-in, either by
specifying the size and grade of bolt, which looks up the required preload, from the bolts
dictionary in bolt_preload.py or by specifying the preload in Newtons directly, for bolt sizes
or grades, not in the bolt preload dictionary or for applying nonstandard preloads.

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These can be selected, by the drop down menu in the preload box, Figure 11-1.

Figure 11-1: Preload definition option

11.1 Size and Grade

The bolt preload can be chosen by specifying the size and grade of the bolt, providing these
are in the bolt_preload.py dictionary. This is done by first specifying the size of bolt, from
the drop down menu, Figure 11-2, then selecting the grade, from the list of options for this
bolt size, Figure 11-3.

Figure 11-2: Bolt Size selection Pelamis BP

Figure 11-3: Bolt Grade selection Pelamis BP

The bolt preloads are calculated to be 60% of the yield load of the bolt. If another preload is
required, or a bolt size or grade is required that is not available in the drop down list, then
there is a user defined option.

11.2 User Defined

The user defined option allows for the user to specify any preload in Newtons, Figure 11-4.
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Figure 11-4: User defined Preload Pelamis BP

12 OK, Apply and Cancel

To create the preloads and leave the plug-in dialogue box open to apply preload to another
set of bolts, click the Apply, clicking Ok will create the preloads and close the dialogue box,
and cancel button closes the Pelamis BP dialogue box without generating any preloads
When pressing OK or Apply, the Pelamis BP plugin will create all of the bolt preloads for the
instances of the bolt part selected, . It will also print an update specifying the instance the
preload applied to and the magnitude of the preload applied as in the example below.
Applying 60.2kN preload to M16 x 120-1 instance

When all of the preloads have been applied the following message will be given
Finished applying preload to all instances of M16 x 120 in assembly

Figure 12-1: Model with Bolt Preload Applied

13 Bolts Database
The bolt preload database is a python file which contains all of the information on the bolt
sizes, grades and preload in a Python dictionary. In the two sections below, how to read and
understand the file and how to add bolts sizes and grades to the file will be discussed.

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The file is called materials_database.py and can be found in the Pelamis Materials Database
folder
within
the
abaqus_plugins
folder
at
the
following
location
..\abaqus_plugins\pelamisBoltPreload\boltPreload\bolt_preload.py
The file can be opened and modified with any text editor such as Notepad++.

13.1 Structure
The file is split into three sections, a header, a definition of the dictionary, and the bolt
preload database itself.
The header section looks like this, which shows information on the version of the file, and
when it was last updated along with a comment on the units and naming conventions for
adding bolt preloads to the file.
# ######################################################
# PELAMIS BOLT PRELOAD DICTIONARY
# ######################################################
# Version: 1.0
# Author: Dr R Craven
# Last Modified: 05/03/2014
# File to store bolt preloads for Pelamis Bolt Preload Plug-in

# ######################################################
# NOTES FOR ADDING MATERIALS
# ######################################################
# All Properties MUST be entered in SI Units
# ALL BOLT SIZES MUST BE LOWER CASE! i.e. m08, or m10
# ALL GRADES MUST BE LOWER CASE! i.e. 8.9 zinc plated
# Preload must be given in Newtons

The dictionary section sets up the structure of the dictionary and allows the Pelamis MD
Plug-in within Abaqus to read the bolt preloads this looks like:
# set up dictionary
bolts = {}

The final section is the bolt preloads, these are defined for each bolt size and each has a
specified preload defined in newtons
# ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
bolts['m16']={
'8.8 zinc plated':60200,

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'12.9 black passivated':101500,
'a4-70 stainless steel':42300,
}

13.2 Adding Bolts or Grades

To add a grade to an existing bolt, simply add an extra line to the dictionary for the chosen
bolt size, ensuring the line is between the {} for the dictionary and ends with a comma as
below where the following line has been added '10.9 black passivated:86200, to the
M16 bolt.
# ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
bolts['m16']={
'8.8 zinc plated':60200,
'10.9 black passivated:86200,
'12.9 black passivated':101500,
'a4-70 stainless steel':42300,
}

To add an entirely new bolt size, simply copy and paste and existing bolt dictionary and
change the size of the bolt from m16 to m64 for instance and include any of the grades that
are appropriate and update the preload values to suit the new bolt size.
After making any changes to this file, abaqus will need to restart before any of the changes
made will appear in the drop down list for the size and grade of bolts.

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Bibliography
D-ST-200018 Pelamis Technical Pocket Book (Mechanical)
Pelamis Bolt Preload Code Manual
http://spitfire/svn/abaqus_scripts/abaqus_plugins/pelamisBoltPreload/Documentation/Pel
amis Bolt Preload.chm

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Appendix A: Known Issues

I.

No Known Issues to Date

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