New Design Formula for Bolted Joints under Tensile Loads

A new method for estimating the value of the load factor (the ratio of the additional bolt force to the load) is proposed by introducing the spring constant k_pt . The value of k_pt is analyzed by using an axisymmetric theory of elasticity. For verification of the proposed method, experiments were carried out to measure the load factor. A fairly good agreement is seen between the analytical and the experimental results. The effects of some factors on the load factor were discussed.