Study of bolt load scatter due to tightening sequence

摘要

When a bolt is tightened, significant dispersion between the target preload and the obtained preload may be found. As a consequence, when bolts are subsequently tightened during the assembly process of a bolted joint, the dispersion is propagated leading to a higher scatter in the final bolt load distribution. In this sense, the final bolt loads may differ considerably from the target values. This work presents a methodology to study this phenomenon, providing the final bolt load range with a 3 sigma confidence interval for different assembly strategies, and compares the strengths and weaknesses of each of them, in order to find the most appropriate tightening strategy for each application.