Bolts in Tension pt1 Andrei Lozzi

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The flanges at the end of the two turbine shafts seen above,
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are bolted together to form a very rigid friction coupling
High pressure turbine casing. Note the proportion of the depth of the flanges to the bolts
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diameter. Note also the spacing of the bolts. This is one of the most extraordinary bolted joint.
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These are the heater elements used to ‘grow’ the length of the bolts. When left to cool and
the bolts reaches the same temperature as the flanges, they develop the required preload
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The stem of the bolts is held from turning while the nut is torqued up. Holding the
end of the stem prevents torsional stresses being transmitted to the stem. 6
Note that the stem of these bolts have flat faces machine into their ends, allowing
the stem to be held while the nut is torqued. Also the ‘stem’ is really a threaded bar
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Simple variations in the detail design of the threads, nuts
and bolts in a search to improve fatigue strength
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Results in stress concentration from the above detail designs variations

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The effect of fillets and bolt shank cross-section on fatigue strength

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The effect of the reduction of the bolt shank cross-section by
inserting fillets at the start of the threads.
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Improvements in fatigue life by increasing radius of fillets at the base of
external thread
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Article from Volvo on new head bolts stiffness calculation

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Villiers two stroke engine.

In low performance and low

efficiency engines one finds simple
means of sealing the engine head
to the cylinder and thereby
containing the combustion
products.

Here a simple paper gaskets are

used both at the head and at the
cylinder to crankcase joints.

Paper has about 1/2000 the

Young’s modulus of iron. Hence
the stiffness of the assembly is
very poor and the alternating loads
on the bolts is not helped much at
all by the cast iron cylinder

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30° cone Bolts do generate uniform pressure over the whole
face of a flange. In fact they only clamp around a
cone of 30 ° and then even there the pressure is not
uniform.
The flanges interface separates away from this
cone. The separation occurs because under
compression the flange material expands laterally.
This effect may be seen on the FEA example shown
below.
Any gasket or sealant must be able to fill the gap
with sufficient strength to prevent any leak.

Clearance bolt
hole

Washer dia

Cones in
compression

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Coventry Climax, 2 liters 4 cyl, 62
The ‘head’ of this engine is removable. To seal
the combustion products a reasonable even
pressure has to be maintained all around the
interface between the cylinder block and the
head.

Cylinder head
Interface head to cylinder block.
Cylinder head hold-down studs

To achieve this the studs begin half way

through the cylinder block and extend all the
way to the top of the engine. Each cylinder
has 4 bolts equally disposed around its
periphery.

By this sort of strategy the conical

compression zones generated by the
pretension has space to spread from the
middle of the cylinder block, to all around the
top of the cylinder and meet similar cones
coming from the head.
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 A simple example of parallel load paths.
FT
Here for the spring at left, we can say
because it has fewer coils, of thicker wire and
of smaller coil diameter, will be stiffer than the
one at right. Let the relative stiffness be:
KL = 10 KR
If the applied force F causes an extension of
Δ, the force carried by the left and right
springs are:
FR = Δ KR
FL = Δ KL = Δ 10 KR

Where FT = FL + FR = Δ 11 KR
The fraction of the force carried by either
spring is proportional to the relative stiffness
of that spring.
FL / FT = 10 / 11
FR / FT = 1/ 11

The applied external force is divided between

FT the two load paths in proportion to the ratio of
their stiffness to the total stiffness.
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