An Experimental and Numerical Investigation on Bolted Joints of Woven Glass Fabric/Epoxy Composites

Abstract

In the present work, an attempt is made to study the mechanical response of woven glass fabric/epoxy composite laminates using numerical modelling and experimentation. For this two different configurations namely double lap joined with single and double bolts are chosen. These laminates are subjected to numerical modelling using finite element analysis to study the joint strength and stress analysis. The joint strength of woven glass fabric composites is studied experimentally by conducting tensile test. Along with this the effect of varying edge distance to diameter ratios are studied both numerically and experimentally to arrive at safe design. Both numerical analysis and experimentally obtained bearing strength of composite laminated bolted joints are correlated. This is done in order to predict the the failure load and failure mechanisms in the composite laminate bolted joints. The variation in the numerically and experimentally obtained bearing strength values were well within 5% diference for both cases of single and double bolted joints.