ECCM 2010
IV European Conference on Computational Mechanics
Palais des Congrès, Paris, France, May 16-21, 2010

Finite-Element Simulation of Nonlinear Behavior

of Ultra-thick Plate Joint with Gap between Plates
T. R. Seong1, T.Y. Yoon2, H.M. Koh3
1
Steel Structure Research Laboratory, RIST, Republic of Korea, trseong@rist.re.kr
2
Steel Structure Research Laboratory, RIST, Republic of Korea, tyoon@rist.re.kr
3
Seoul National University, Republic of Korea, hmkoh@snu.ac.kr

In the slip-critical bolted connections, the frictional force between plates plays an essential role for
the load carrying capacity of the joints[1]. The existence of gap between plates significantly reduces
the slip resistance of the joints[3], and even worse in the case of joints connecting ultra-thick plates.
This paper describes a nonlinear finite-element simulation of behavior of ultra-thick plate joint having
gap between splice plate and base plate.

In order to validate the simulation technique, the numerical results are compared with the
experiment. The thickness of the base plate and the splice plate is 38mm and 21 mm respectively. True
stress-strain curve is obtained from the uniaxial tensile test for the steel plate used, The FE simulation
of nonlinear behavior of slip-critical bolted joints is to solving a combined problem with material,
geometrical and boundary nonlinearity. The body of joint is generated with three-dimensional solid
elements(see Figure 1). In particular, the solids are hexahedral eight-node element except that the
six-node wedge element is used for the shank of bolt and part of washer edge. To minimize the
computing time, only one-eighth of total body is modeled using the symmetric conditions, and the
nodal boundary conditions are assigned from these conditions. For the material nonlinearity, an
elasto-plastic constitutive law with isotropic strain hardening based on the von Mises yield criterion is
adopted. The contact between two bodies is modeled with contact surface approach[4], which uses
master and slave surface to tie the two discontinuous surfaces together. For the base and splice plate
interfaces, a friction coefficient of 0.436 derived from this experiment is applied. For other interfaces,
zero friction coefficient is used. The sliding and sticking conditions are determined from the classic
isotropic Coulomb friction law. The bolt tension force is introduced through “pretension” loading,
which makes it possible to observe the variation of the bolt tension force during the simulation. The
uniform displacement loading condition at one end of the plate is imposed.

8NODE HEX ELEM.

6NODE WEDGE ELEM.

1600 1600
1776 ELEMS.
1400 1400

X-SYMM. 1200 1200

LOAD(kN)

448 ELEMS. 1000

LOAD(kN)

1000

800 800

1152 ELEMS. 600 1 600

2
1 400
400
EXPERIMENT
1600 ELEMS.
200 EXPERIMENT
200 ANALYSIS
Y-SYMM. ANALYSIS
0 0
0 500 1000 1500 2000 0 50000 100000 150000

Z-SYMM. STRAIN STRAIN

2 3
DISPLACEMENT
CONTROLLED LOADING

Figure 1: FE Mesh of Joint 4 1600 1600

1600 1.1 1400 1400

1200 1200
1.0
LOAD(kN)

1000
LOAD(kN)
Normalized Bolt Load

1200
0.9 1000

800 800
4
LOAD(kN)

0.8
800
0.7
``
600
3 600

400 400
EXPERIM ENT
EXPERIMENT
0.6 200
400 Experiment 200 ANALYSIS
EXPERIMENT
ANALYSIS
0.5
Analysis
0 0
ANALYSIS 0 2000 4000 6000 8000
0 200 400 600 800
0 0.4
S TRAIN Microstrain
0 3 6 9 12 15 0 500 1000 1500
ELONGATION(mm) Load(kN)

Figure 2: Load-Elongation and Bolt Tension Figure 3: Load-Strain Relation

1
 The load-elongation curve which is the most important characteristic describing the overall
behavior of the model shows the good compliance with the experiment in the range of 3~4%(See
Figure 2). The numerical result of the bolt tension reduction caused by tensile loading turns out to be
higher by approximately 3%, which is also in good agreement. Figure 3 plotting the load-strain
relation on the plate shows very close trend with the experiment.

The behavior of the slip-critical connections with gap between base and splice plate is investigated
through FE simulation technique and is also compared with the experiment[5]. The joint connects
80mm and 78mm thick plate, which makes 2mm gap between base and splice plate. The analysis
model is shown in Figure 4. The simulation shows that the slip resistance is very close to the
experimental result(see Figure 5). When compared with the experimental result of the same geometric
specimen without gap, the slip resistance of the gap specimen decreases to 71% of that of no gap
specimen. The reduction level of slip resistance for the gap specimen with 26.6mm thick plate is 85%
of no gap specimen with the same thickness[3]. The thicker the joint plate is, the lower the slip
resistance. Figure 6 shows the tension force drop of the bolt located near the gap region is much larger
than one located far from the gap region. Moreover, high stress level can be found in the local area
affected by gap(see Figure 7). Similarly, stress concentration is observed in the edge area of the base
plate. Therefore, much attention should be paid since the stress level of this area reaches near the yield
strength of the steel plate.

In summary, the numerical simulation presented in this paper provides reasonable predictions of
the friction type bolted connections with or without gap between base and splice plate. According to
the simulation results, the slip resistance of ultra-thick plate connection shows a larger decrease than
the one of normal thick plate connection.

1mm gap

Figure 4: FE Mesh of Joint with Gap

1.02
2000

1.00

1600
Normalized Bolt Load(T/T 0 )

0.98

1200 Analysis, No.1

Load(kN)

314MPa
Analysis, No.2 490MPa
0.96 Analysis, No.3

800
Analysis, No.5 490MPa
Experiment, No.1
0.94 Experiment, No.2
Experiment, No.3
EXPERIMENT
400 Experiment, No.5

ANALYSIS 0.92 8 7 6 5 1 2 3 4

0
0 1 2 3 4 0.90
Elongation(mm) 0 200 400 600 800 1000
Load(kN)

Figure 5: Load-Elongation Figure 6: Bolt Tension Change Figure 7: von Mises Stress

References

[1] G. L. Kulak, J. W. Fisher, J. H. A. Struik, “Guide to Design Criteria for Bolted and Riveted Joints”, 2nd Ed.
John Wiley and Sons, Inc. 1987
[2] M. A. McCarthy, C. T. McCarthy, V. P. Lawlor, W. F. Stanley, “Three-dimensional Finite Element
Analysis of Single-bolt, Single-lap Composite Bolted Joints: Part I – Model Development and Validation”,
Composite Structures, Vol. 71, pp. 140-158, 2005
[3] H. Miyazaki, M. Kuroda, M. Tanaka, T. Mori, “Slip Resistance of High Strength Bolted Connections with
Different Thickness of Base Plates”, J. of Japan Society of Civil Engineers, 44A, pp. 61-70, 1998
[4] “Theory Manual”, ABAQUS Inc., Ver. 6.5 Documentation, 2004
[5] T. R. Seong, T. Y. Yoon, J. B. Jo, K. S. Jung, “Experimental Evaluation of the Slip-critical Connections
with Sliced Splice Plates”, Proceedings of Annual Conference, Korean Society of Steel Construction,
pp152-155, 2008