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Bolt Pretension
16.0 Release
ANSYS Mechanical
Advanced Connections
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Bolt Pretension
Whenever you model a bolted structure, it might be important to include the
pretension (or preload) in the bolt caused by the tightening of the bolt.
Stresses due to
specified
pretension in bolt
Mechanical provides a convenient way to simulate bolt pretension
Automatically disconnects the nodes about midway thru shank of meshed bolt body (3D solid
and line bodies only)
Reconnects nodes with constraint equations
Uses constraint equations to define a mathematical offset with the expressed purpose of
generating the user defined preload.
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Bolt Pretension
Features of the pretension element:
halves of a bolt.
Nodes I, J are the end nodes, usually coincident.
Node K is the pretension node:
Location is arbitrary.
Has one DOF: UX (always aligned with bolt shank axis
via local coordinate system).
Used to define the preload, as an FX force or UX
displacement.
Actual line of action is in pretension load direction.
Preload
direction
J
K
Node I
Pretension
section
Bolt solids or beams
Bolt Pretension
Pretension Load Application
When a physical bolt is pretensioned:
Turning the nut reduces the unstretched grip length of the bolt, thereby inducing
pretension
When the desired pretension is achieved and the wrench is removed, the new
unstretched grip length becomes locked
First, apply the specified pretension (usually a specified force) in one load step
Then, lock the pretension section displacement (lock the shortened grip length) in a
Bolt Pretension
Pretension Load Application (contd)
Bolt pretension load can be applied to a cylindrical face, to a straight edge of a
line body, to a single body, or to multiple bodies.
Line of action of the bolt load applied to a cylindrical surface will be along cylinder axis
by default.
Line of action of bolt load applied to a line body is always parallel to line.
If you apply the Bolt Pretension load to a body, you will need to have a local
Coordinate System object in the tree.
The application of the load will be at the origin and along the z-axis of the local
coordinate system.
You can place the coordinate system anywhere in the body and reorient the z-axis.
Bolt Pretension
There are a number of options under the Define By Column of the Bolt Pretension
Tabular Data.
The most common procedure involves a minimum of two Load Steps where a user
defined Load is applied in LS1 followed by Lock in subsequent LS2,3,etc.
Load: Applies a force as a preload. A Load field is displayed
where you enter the value of the load in force units.
Lock: Fixes all displacements. You can set this state for any step
except the first step.
Bolt Pretension
Adjustment: Applies a user defined length as a pre-adjustment (for example, to model
x number of threads).
An Adjustment field is displayed where you enter the value of the adjustment in length units.
Supports Restarts
Click to edit Master text styles
If a solution restart is performed from a substep of a load step including an
Increment, the increment value gets added to the solved deformation value at the
beginning of the selected restart sub-step.
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Alternative:
. Increment - Load - Lock
Bolt Pretension
Open: Effectively suppresses the load for the step so that the load has no effect on the
applied step
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Note that in order to avoid convergence issues from having under-constrained conditions, a
small load (0.01% of the maximum load across the steps) will be applied. You can set this state
for any step.
Bolt Pretension
If you try to apply a preload on the same face more than once, all definitions except
the first one are ignored.
Be sure that a sufficiently fine mesh exists on a face or body that contains Bolt
Pretension loads so that the mesh can be correctly partitioned along the axial direction
(that is, at least 2 elements long).
For simulating one Bolt Pretension through multiple split faces, you should apply only
one Bolt Pretension load to one of the split faces, as the Bolt Pretension load will slice
though the whole cylinder even though only part of the cylinder is selected.
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Bolt Pretension
Care should be used when applying a Bolt Pretension load to a cylindrical face that has
bonded contact. There is a possibility that if you apply a Bolt Pretension load to a
cylinder that had a bonded contact region, the bonded contact will block the ability of
the Bolt Pretension to deform properly.
The Bolt Pretension load should be applied to cylindrical faces that contain the model
volume (that is, do not try to apply the Bolt Pretension load to a hole).
Use caution when defining bolt loads by bodies and a coordinate system because the
entire body is sliced along the local XY plane (Z=0).
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Bolt Pretension
Body Scoping
Body scoping of a Bolt Pretension load can be to more than one body. In this
case all the scoped bodies will be cut.
There is still only a single Bolt Pretension load created but this feature allows
you to apply a bolt load to a bolt that has been cut into several bodies. This
feature is illustrated in the following figure.
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Bolt Pretension
Bolt Pretension Reactions
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Bolt Pretension
Visualizing Bolt Pretension Elements
The PRET179 elements used for bolt pretension are actually just constraint equations.
You can visualize these constraints on the FE model as follows:
Highlight the Solution Information Branch. In the Details Window, FE Connection
Visibility:
Activate Visibility =Yes
Display = All FE Connectors
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Bolt Pretension
The solver output will also list a summary of important pretension specifications for
each bolt pretension section that was created for additional confirmation
Pretension Section ID
Pretension node number
Pretension direction
9 pretension
elements created
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20
True thread
Virtual Thread
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