Fatigue response of high-strength steel bolted connections under in-plane shear and out-of-plane bending loading modes
Year: 2019
Type: article
Abstract: The use of high-strength steel (HSS) permits weight reduction in heavy-duty applications such as trucks, trailers, and agricultural machinery, where significant fatigue resistance is a requirement. Fatigue cracks are often initiated at locations of stress concentration such as the joining of mechanical parts, the most widely used methods being welding and mechanical fastening. It is known that HSSs do not only have higher yield values but also perform better in terms of fatigue. Yet, the weld fatigue resistance does not improve with an increase in the base material property due to the stress concentrations and imperfections introduced by welding. The aim is to explore the possibilities of using conventional mechanical joining techniques for HSSs and assess the fatigue properties under typical loading modes. Mechanical joining introduces an additional failure mechanism called fretting fatigue resulting from the oscillatory relative displacement between the surfaces in contact. This failure mode is reproduced by the experiments and the effects of pre-tension, hole-making procedure, washer configuration, and surface condition are analyzed for steel grades S500MC, S700MC, and S960MC. Accompanying finite-element simulations are employed to develop a deeper understanding of the underlying physics. The results might lead to various guidelines with respect to design rules and best practices for HSS bolted connections subjected to fatigue loading.
Source: Procedia Structural Integrity
Institutions: OnderzoeksCentrum voor de Aanwending van Staal, KU Leuven
Language: English
Subfield: Mechanical Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W2998149705