1

Basic Concepts

This book is intended to give you an introduction to the design and behavior of bolted
joints and
hopefully will help you become better designers, assemblers, or users of such joints, or
help you
analyze and prevent joint failures. The subject is a complex one, which is why a two
volume text
of well over 1000 pages can be considered only an introduction. The material presented
here,
however, should be all the information that many or most people need. Numerous
references at
the end of each chapter lead the way to further details for those who need or want to
know more.
This first chapter gives an overview of the material to be covered in the rest of the book;
its an introduction to the introduction, if you will. You might find it useful to come back to
this chapter and reread it if you get bogged down in the detail of subsequent chapters
and
have trouble seeing how that subject or detail fits the overall picture.

1.1 TWO TYPES OF BOLTED JOINTS

Bolted joints come in two flavors, depending on the direction of the external loads or
forces
acting on the joint. If the line of action of the forces on the joint is more or less parallel to
the
axes of the bolt, the joint is said to be loaded in tension and is called a tension or tensile
joint.
If the line of action of the load is more or less perpendicular to the axes of the bolt, the
joint is
loaded in shear and is called a shear joint. Both types are illustrated in Figure 1.1. Some
joints
support combined tensile and shear loads and are named after the larger of the loads
placed
on them, be it tensile or shear.
The distinction between tensile and shear joints is important, because the two types
differ in
the way they respond to loads, the ways in which they fail, the ways in which they are
assembled, etc. In general, the tensile joint is the more complex of the twoas far as
behavior
and failure are concernedand its the more common type of joint. Most of this text,
therefore,
is devoted to it. Another reason for this bias: Messrs. Kulak, Fisher, and Struik have
written
an excellent text, Guide to Design Criteria for Bolted and Riveted Joints, second edition
(John
Wiley & Sons, New York, 1987), which is devoted almost entirely to shear joints.

1.2 BOLTS JOB

The purpose of a bolt or group of bolts in all tensile and in most shear joints is to create a
clamping force between two or more things, which well call joint members. In some
shear
joints the bolts act, instead, primarily as shear pins, but even here some bolt tension and
clamping force is useful, if for no other reason than to retain the nuts.

1.2.1 TENSILE JOINTS

Specifically, in tensile joints, the bolts should clamp the joint members together with
enough
force to prevent them from separating or leaking. If the joint is also exposed to some
shear
loads, the bolts must also prevent the joint members from slipping.

Coincidentally, the tension in the bolt must be great enough to prevent it from
selfloosening
when exposed to vibration, shock, or thermal cycles. High tension in the bolt can
also make it less susceptible to fatigue (but sometimes more susceptible to stress
cracking). In
general, however, we usually want the bolt in a joint loaded in tension to exert as much
force
on the joint as it and the joint members can stand.
There are two important facts you should keep in mind when dealing with tension joints.
First, the bolt is a mechanism for creating and maintaining a force, the clamping force
between joint members.
Second, the behavior and life of the bolted joint depend very much on the magnitude and
stability of that clamping force.
Note that I did not say magnitude and stability of the preload or of the tension in the
bolt
or of the torque applied to the bolt. Those parameters are related to the clamping force,
often
closely related, but the key issue as far as joint behavior is concerned is the force the two
joint members exert on each other (the clamping force), created, of course, by the force
the
bolts are exerting on them.
The key issue as far as bolt life and integrity are concerned is, however, the tension in it;
so
we must keep our eye on both interjoint clamping force and bolt tension to be successful.
The clamping force on the joint is initially created when the joint is assembled and the
bolts are tightened by turning the nut or the head of the bolt. This act, of course, also
creates
tension in the bolt; the tension is usually called preload at this stage.
Although there may be some plastic deformation in some of the threads when a bolt is
tightened normally, most of the bolt and the joint members respond elastically as the
bolt
is tightened. The joint members are compressed a slight amount, and the bolt is
stretched by a
larger amount.
In effect, both joint members and bolts behave like stiff springs, one being compressed
and the other stretched as suggested in Figure 1.2. Like springs, furthermore, they
acquire
potential (or stored) energy. If we released them after tightening them, they would
suddenly
snap back to their original dimensions. It is this stored energy which allows bolts to
maintain
that all-important clamping force between joint members after we remove the wrench.
We might even say that the tensile joint, unlike its welded or bonded joint cousin, is
alive, filled with energy and able to do its job only because its filled with energy.
FIGURE 1.1 Bolted joints are classified by the service loads placed on them. If those loads and
forces are
applied in a direction more or less parallel to the axes of the bolts, as in the upper sketch here, the
joint is
called a tensile or tension joint. If the line of action of the forces is essentially perpendicular to the
axes of
the bolts, as in the lower sketch, the joint is called a shear joint.
2 Introduction to the Design and Behavior of Bolted Joints

1.2.2 SHEAR JOINTS

The bolts main job in a shear joint is to keep the joint from slipping or from tearing apart
in the slip direction. If the joint must also support some tensile load, the bolt must resist
that too.
In some shear joints, as already mentioned, the bolts resist slip by acting as shear pins,
and

joint integrity is determined by the shear strength of the bolts and joint members. There
are a
number of reasons why we will often want to tension these bolts, as well see, but the
exact
amount of tension, or of the energy stored in them, is not a critical factor.
In other shear-loaded joints, slip is prevented by friction restraint between joint members.
These friction forces are created by the clamping load, which in turn is created by heavily
tensioned bolts. Here again, therefore, the bolt is a mechanism for creating and
maintaining a
force, and the magnitude and life of that force depend on the potential energy stored in
the
bolts during assembly. Even here, however, were usually less concerned about creating
an exact amount of tension in the bolts during assembly than we are when were dealing
with tensile joints, because service loads dont affect bolt tension and clamping force in
shear joints.

1.3 THE CHALLENGE

The bolted joint presents users and designers with many problems. In part this is because
it is
aliveit keeps changing state in response to service and environmental conditions, as
well
see. A more common source of problems, however, is the fact that the assembly process
and
the in-service behavior are affected by literally hundreds of variables, many of which are
difficult or impossible to control or to predict with accuracy. As a result, when we deal
with
bolted joints we must inevitably deal with a lot of uncertainty. What follows is a quick
review
of some of the sources of this uncertainty. Well take a closer look at most of these things
in
later chapters.