This thesis focuses on the procedures for numerical analysis that allow numerical modelling of bolt bearing up to fracture. Bolt bearing is characterized by large plastic deformations that occur mainly near the contact between bolts and plates and may possibly lead to fracture. Numerical modelling of such behaviour is not trivial. The commercially available software Abaqus was used for this purpose, taking the advantages of built-in material models and numerical procedures without introducing the user subroutines. The problem of bolt bearing is assessed using static stress analysis, explicit analysis and coupled Eulerian-Lagrange analysis.
The fracture model considered is based on stress modified fracture model and relies on the accumulating damage and on the reducing stiffness of finite elements to the point, where they offer no resistance and can be either removed from the model or are left with negligible stiffness. The required parameters (stress triaxiality, equivalent plastic strain to failure and displacement to failure) were determined from the experimental data.
A few different bolted connections with different types of failure are analysed with full failure model and the results are compared with experiments. The advantage of Eulerian meshing is considered where excessive plastic deformations lead to contact problems. Coupled Eulerian-Lagrange analysis with model parts expected to have large deformations were modelled with Eulerian approach and the rest with more conventional Lagrange approach. Diverse material models, element options, time step and their impact on numerical simulation were compared and optimized for speed and accuracy.
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