Efficiency and Stiffness of the Single Lap Bolt Joints in Glass Epoxy Composites

Abstract

The present work deals with the investigations on the joint efficiency and the joint stiffness of the single lap bolt joint made of two dimensional woven glass fibre reinforced composite materials. The effect of joint geometry, bolt pretension and washer has been determined on the bolt joint performance. To estimate the effect of geometric parameters; the edge-to-hole diameter (e/d) and width-to-hole diameter (w/d) ratios are varied from 3 to 4 and 3 to 5, respectively. To study the worst loading conditions; the bolt pre-tension is set to zero, whereas 5 Nm torque is applied to investigate the joint in fully clamped conditions. Two different sizes of washer i.e., the outer diameter of 12 mm and 16 mm have been studied to estimate the effect of the washer on failure load, joint stiffness, and joint efficiency. Progressive damage analysis has been performed on the single lap bolt joint. Characteristic curve method along with Tsai-Wu failure criteria has been used for the prediction of the failure loads and failure modes. The joint stiffness and the failure load of the joint are increased with the increase of w/d ratios. However, the joint efficiency was negatively influenced by w/d ratio.