Fatigue behaviour of bolted joints

This paper analyzes the tensile fatigue behaviour of bolted joints constituted by commercial steel bolts. They were tested under both monotonic and fatigue tensile loading, with different R-ratio. Results show that under increasing monotonic tensile loading the bolted joint is not the failure zone of the bolt, whereas such a bolted joint is the failure region under cyclic loading. The fatigue life decreases with the increase of the stress range and with the maximum stress, and pre-loading enlarges the fatigue life. Fatigue fracture surface shows a geometry of crescent moon in the case of short cracks and such a shape evolves towards a quasi-straight crack front in the case of long cracks. Fatigue fracture usually happens at the root of the first notch inside the bolted joint, although fracture initiation may happen in several consecutive notch roots, increasing the initiation angle of the fatigue crack as the applied stress diminishes.