Influence of Temperature on the Bolt Loads and Variation in a Bolted Flange for Subsea Pipeline Connection

Abstract

This article proposed an analytic and finite element-combined modelling method for the investigation of temperature effects on bolt loads and variation in a bolted flange for subsea pipeline connection. With this method, the preloads of bolt in the bolted flange assembly were investigated under different medium liquid temperatures in the pipeline. The simulation results illustrate that the deviation of bolt loads can be increased due to the medium liquid temperature increasing. The final bolt load deviation increases along with the increasing of the initial deviation of bolt preloads in a constant medium liquid temperature. The final distribution of bolt loads can be affected by the initial condition of the bolts. When bolt preloads are staggered, the variance of the final bolt loads is minimized; when the bolt preloads are axisymmetric, the final bolt load variance is the maximum.