SESSION TITLE – WILL BE COMPLETED BY MSC SOFTWARE

LESSONS LEARNED IN SOLID MODELING OF

BOLTS IN CONTACT
Authors:
Tricia Carr, Dan Mueller (The Boeing Company, USA)

Presenter:
Tricia Carr, Structural Analyst

THEME

Structures

SUMMARY

This paper outlines some of the lessons learned during a bolted joint analysis
study. Solid element bolt models created using Patran command language
(PCL) were run with contact enabled, both in Sol 101 and Sol 400. Both bolt
preload and interference fit are simulated in these models by using geometric
overlap. Preload, for example, was developed by creating a bolt head which
physically overlapped the washer; then the ERROR tolerance on the contact
table was used to force the head and washer faces into place, thereby pre-
stressing the bolt. Interference fit was done in a similar way, by modeling a
bolt with a larger diameter than the hole.

The meshing method which was used in this study generated HEX-only, highly
regular models, where nodes were exactly aligned between the master and
slave surfaces. This exposed an interesting problem, in which the bolts would
spin about the centerline. Friction and grounded CELAS connections were
tried without success. It turned out that the one-to-one correspondence of bolt
and plate nodes generated poor multi-point constraint contact equations; the
Nastran solver could not determine a good solution to the contact problem. The
answer involved activating the analytical contact option, in order to smooth the
bolt surface and create better MPC equations—a rare example of a mesh being
too perfect.

KEYWORDS

Contact, PCL commands, solid modeling

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LESSONS: SOLID MODELING OF BOLTS IN CONTACT

1: Background

Bearing and bypass loads in bolted joints are especially important in composite
structure, and developing accurate loadshare models is essential. One-
dimensional closed form analysis methods are used within Boeing; for 2D and
3D models, commercial FEA codes are to be used as the analysis engines. To
that end, a way to rapidly generate FE models was created to reduce
engineering time. MSC.Nastran was used as the analysis code, and the models
were generated using Patran Command Language (PCL).

Figure 1: Example solid models of bolted joint

2: Automated modeling with PCL

An in-house tool was developed to generate the geometry of a Patran model,

using a few straightforward inputs from the user. Output from the in-house tool
is a session file containing PCL (Patran Command Language). The session file
is then run from a command line in order to generate a bulk data file and a
Patran database. Alternatively, the session file can be run from inside Patran
(this is a great deal slower, but watching the mesh being formed automatically
is entertaining).

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LESSONS: SOLID MODELING OF BOLTS IN CONTACT

Because of the algorithms used to generate the mesh, 3D solid bolted joint
models auto-generated in this way are extremely regular (i.e., all elements are
bricks (CHEXA), and there is a one-to-one correspondence between all contact
bodies in the model).

Figure 2: Models created by automated meshing are very regular

Contact was run in Nastran Solution 101 as well as Solution 400. As there was
no material nonlinearity, and no geometric nonlinearity aside from the contact
itself, Sol 101 was just as suitable for our models. EXO-6 (MSC Software
Corporation’s tool for reading Nastran output files) did not appear to catch
FATALs for Sol 101 contact runs, however—so a lesson learned is to be sure
to check the .f06 file for FATALs.

Interference fit was simulated by modeling the bolt shank diameter larger than
that of the hole; then, setting the distance tolerance ERROR on the contact
table to a value greater than this overlap will force the shank-hole contact pair
to mate. An alternative method is to model the parts as neat fit, and use the
parameter CINTERF to generate interference. However, we preferred to be
able to see the interference in the model on its creation.

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LESSONS: SOLID MODELING OF BOLTS IN CONTACT

Figure 3: Displacement plots of axial preload and interference fit in fasteners

Likewise, bolt preload was simulated by modeling the bolt length shorter than
the stackup. The ERROR parameter was set to force the washer-head contact
pair to mate, thereby simulating the preload. MSC.Patran’s separate method of
applying bolt preload was not explored in this effort.

Figure 4: Set ERROR larger than the overlap to activate contact interference

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LESSONS: SOLID MODELING OF BOLTS IN CONTACT

The PCL code for Sol 400 runs with contact turned out to be much more
convoluted than that for Sol 101. An example of the code (see Figure 5:)
shows, for example, that Sol 400 starts out by calling solution sequence 600.

Figure 5: PCL for Sol 400 runs proved complicated

One particular bit of Sol 400 PCL proved very trying. Normally, a Sol 400 run
with contact writes out a nonlinear property card for every PSHELL card; this
nonlinear card, PSHLN1, comes from Sol 400’s origins in MARC. However,
PSHLN1 does not work unless MID1 is equal to MID2; unless, that is, you go
on to specify MID3 as well. This was not the case for a few specialized
elements in our models, which are used to apply running loads at the edges of
the solids. The PSHLN1 needed to be removed—simple enough if commenting
out a card in the bulk data, but much harder to change in the session file. First
of all, a “small strain” component needed to be specified in element properties,
but the property had first to be created and subsequently modified in PCL.
(The PCL code in Figure 6: shows an example: “Small Strain” must specified
under elementprops_modify; if it is added under elementprops_create, it is
ignored.)

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LESSONS: SOLID MODELING OF BOLTS IN CONTACT

Figure 6: Turning on “Small Strain” in PCL

This and other issues with PCL for Sol 400 steered us toward directly writing
out the bulk data from the in-house tool , skipping the intermediate step of the
session file.

3: Contact

One of the most perplexing issues which came up during our studies was a
problem with bolts spinning about their axis. Figure 7: shows the
displacements for a double shear lap joint, no external loads applied, with a
single bolt held in place by contact plus a small amount of friction being
applied. (External loads were applied during other portions of testing to try to
‘bias’ the friction, but this did not prevent bolt spinning.)

Several modeling methods to prevent bolt turning were attempted, including

increasing friction () and adding weak CELAS springs. However, even using
values of =0.5 or more and springs as stiff as k=1000 lb/in, did not solve the
issue.

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LESSONS: SOLID MODELING OF BOLTS IN CONTACT

Figure 7: Sol 400 run with contact: displacement shows bolt spinning about axis

Monitoring the location of nodes on the bolt shank showed that displacements
would change direction throughout the solution process. Consultation with
MSC Software Corporation representatives suggested that the cause of the
problem might be that the bolt was 'cogging' (turning back and forth without
finding a good solution to the contact problem), due almost entirely to the fact
that our models were so regular (see Figure 2:). Switching master/slave
definitions would not help, as the mesh density was the same (each node on the
bolt is matched exactly by a node on the hole).

The left side of 0 shows a very coarse diagram of a bolt in a hole and illustrates
this one-to-one correspondence. The right side of the figure shows that as the
bolt moves slightly under load, its nodes will contact the flat surface between
two of the plate nodes and establish contact. Nastran will push the bolt back
until it contacts the plate again. The regularity of the mesh means that the
Nastran cannot establish a good solution to contact. Incidentally, solid TET
models do not have this problem because of the essential randomness of the
placement of the nodes (there's never an exact match on both contacting
surfaces).

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LESSONS: SOLID MODELING OF BOLTS IN CONTACT

Figure 8: Schematic: A moving bolt contacts the side of the hole

The solution to this issue turned out to be activating the analytical contact
option on the BCBODY card, which defines a contact body. Analytical contact
creates a smoothed surface that is used in lieu of the actual mesh in order to
check for contact. In our case, smoothing (specifically splining) produces a
geometric cylinder for the hole, rather than faceted finite element model (FEM)
surface. 0 shows the effect of the smoothed surface, replacing the (very
crudely) meshed hole in the plate with a mathematical surface; now when the
bolt moves under loading, it does not make an 'artificial' contact that is really
just an artifact of the mesh.

Figure 9: Schematic: Smoothing the FEM with analytical contact

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LESSONS: SOLID MODELING OF BOLTS IN CONTACT

Analytical contact is activated by the variable IDSPL on the BCBODY card

(see Figure 10:); this controls splining (technically, in our 3D case, Coons
surfaces).

Figure 10: IDSPL option activates “Analytical Contact”

We used a value of -1 for IDSPL in most cases, as this requires the least input
from the analyst, while still getting the desired results. Nastran will not smooth
any angles greater than that specified by the SANGLE threshold (see card
image above) which has a default of 60°.

If IDSPL is set to +1, Nastran will only spline the areas specified with the
boundary line segments (BLSEG) card. However, this can be very time
consuming. A Lesson Learned is that if no areas are specified, then all bodies
will be smoothed, including 90° edges (such as bolt head and shank). This is
probably not what the analyst is looking for.

Although the use of analytical contact solved the problem (see Figure 11:), for
a displacement plot of a model with IDSPL set to -1, the solution seems

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LESSONS: SOLID MODELING OF BOLTS IN CONTACT

counterintuitive, in that smoothing the surface prevented bolt spinning rather

than allowing it.

Figure 11: Turning on analytical contact solves bolt spinning issue

In order to determine experimentally if splining the mesh surface was the

solution to the problem, we increased the circumferential mesh density in order
to more closely approximate a mathematical cylinder. As the number of
circumferential elements was increased from 16 to 144, the error from zero
rotation about the centerline-axis decreased from 15% down to 0.27% (Figure
12:). Furthermore, turning on analytical contact reduces the error from zero
rotation about the centerline-axis to 0.0006%.

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LESSONS: SOLID MODELING OF BOLTS IN CONTACT

Axial Rotation vs. Number of Circumferential Elements

Around Shank Location
0.8
Fastener Axial Rotation (deg)

0.7

0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0.0
10 30 50 70 90 110 130 150
Number of Circumferential Elements Around Shank Location

Figure 12: Fastener axial rotation vs. number of circumferential elements around
shank location

All models on which we tested analytical contact were relatively small (30,000
degrees of freedom) and solved fairly quickly. Consequently, we did not make
estimations of the effect of using splining on solution time, but it may very
well be worth trying with some difficult contact problem.

Using PCL to write out a contact table was straightforward for Sol 101; finding
the right combination of lines of PCL to do the same for Sol 400 was much
more troublesome. Another Lesson Learned is that creating the table by
directly writing the NASTRAN input cards (rather than going through the
intermediate step of a session file) turned out to be more practical.

Even analysts who are not investigating automated meshing might consider
automating the creation of BCTABLE card images (by means of an Excel
macro or some other programming language), as a means of saving or
archiving a contact table (especially a complicated one). Patran cannot always
accurately read a contact table in from a bulk data file (i.e., it fails the circle
test), and we discovered that the ‘export/import’ feature on the contact table
form has problems as well.

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LESSONS: SOLID MODELING OF BOLTS IN CONTACT

4: Lessons Learned

A solid bolt model in contact exhibiting ‘spinning’ behavior may need

analytical contact turned on (via the IDSPL field on BCBODY). The simplest
option is to specify ‘-1’ as the IDSPL value.

Currently, there is no satisfactory way to save or archive the settings in your

contact table inside Patran: a bulk data file read into Patran will not always
reproduce the entire table. Likewise, the ‘export’ feature on the table form in
Patran saves only part of the data. Writing data using a PCL script gets rather
convoluted with Sol 400. We had better results by writing the BCTABLE out
using an Excel macro.

Go back to your roots: review the f06 file carefully if you’re running Sol 101
with contacts. EXO-6 has been known to miss the FATAL in this case, and
results read into Patran do not give any helpful clues of only a portion of the
load having been applied.

Copyright © 2013 Boeing. All rights reserved.