Efficient assembly of bolted joints under external loads using numerical FEM
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Date
2018-05-16Author
Bouzid, Abdel-Hakim
Heras Miguel, Iker
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International Journal of Mechanical Sciences 142/143 : 575-582 (2018)
Abstract
Several factors can cause leakages in a bolted flange connection, external loads being the
most important one. External loads such as those produced by misalignment introduce an
external axial load combined with a bending moment which could lead to either an
excessive compression of the gasket and its subsequent crushing, and/or a separation of
the flanges causing leakage failure. Several studies have been carried out to study these
prejudicial effects, but no practical solutions are proposed to compensate for them. In this
sense, this work presents a numerical methodology that iteratively calculates the non-
uniform bolt tightening load distribution to achieve a uniform gasket stress distribution
that improves the leakage performance of bolted joints subjected to external loads.