JOINT OPENING BEHAVIOR OF HIGH-STRENGTH BOLTED CONNECTION WITH BOLTING THE JOINT

Abstract

Fatigue cracks are often repaired by the combination of drilled crack arrester (stop-hole) and patch plate with high-strength bolts. However, even in this method, cases of re-initiation of fatigue crack have been reported. Therefore, the authors propose the new technique to reduce the stress concentration of stop-hole more by bolting the crack for the patch plate repair method. In this study, the joint opening behavior of high-strength bolted connection was investigated by the FE analysis as the fundamental research. As a result, it was shown that the joint opening displacement becomes smaller and slip strength becomes higher by bolting the joint. Furthermore, it was also shown that the stress concentration of stop-hole repaired with patch plate is further reduced compared with the conventional method by bolting the crack.