Effect of nanoclay and bolt preloads on the strength of bolted joints in glass epoxy nanocomposites

Abstract

The present work deals with the effect of different molding parameters and bolt pretension on the performance of single-lap joints. Bolt joints were prepared from woven glass fiber reinforced laminates incorporating nanoclay content which was varied from 0 to 5 wt%. Curing parameters for the nanocomposite manufacturing were optimized using the Taguchi method. Different geometric parameters, i.e., edge distance-to-hole diameter (E/D) ratio and width-to-hole diameter (W/D) ratio, were varied over the range of 2–5. To analyze the effect of bolt preloads, different levels of preloads, i.e., 0, 3, and 5 Nm, were considered for the failure analysis of the joint. Progressive damage analysis along with the characteristic curve method and Hashin failure criteria was performed to predict the failure load and failure modes in the bolted joints, numerically. Failure load was improved by 19 and 37% for joints with 3 and 5 Nm torque, respectively.