A STUDY ON INITIAL SHAPE MEASUREMENT AND EVALUATION OF AXIAL FORCE OF HIGH STRENGTH HEXAGON BOLT SETS

Abstract

In order to evaluate the axial forces of high strength hexagon bolts used for bridges in service, it is necessary to evaluate their forces non-destructively. The non-destructive evaluation of axial forces of the bolts is often carried out by using vibration characteristics such as impact test and ultrasonic test from excitation. The vibration characteristics can be affected by dimensional variations of the bolts, but no case studies investigating dimensional variations have been reported. Therefore, we measured the initial shape of unused high strength hexagon bolt sets in detail, presented their statistics, and examined the evaluation of axial force using the statistics.