ZEIT3700 Mechanical Design 1

2010 Semester 2

Fasteners in shear
When two components are joined across some common interface, the loads which are transferred by the joint from one component to the other can be resolved into a component normal to the common surface and a component tangential to that surface. If the normal component is a pressure (i.e. compressive stress) it is obviously transferred by contact stresses between the components, and the fasteners take no part in transferring that component of load. If the normal component is tensile, then it must be transferred by the fasteners. The mechanism for transferring the tangential component is generally described as shear loading even though one of the mechanisms of tangential load transfer does not involve transverse shear stresses in the fasteners. Fasteners include all devices which are used to join two or more components or assemblies. Here we are concerned only with cylindrical fasteners like rivets and bolts which are transmitting shearing loads between two (or more) components of machines and structures. This means that there is a mating face between the two components where they contact one another, and cylindrical holes are drilled into each component. On assembly the fasteners are fitted through the holes and appropriately secured. The loading being transferred in each component is parallel to the mating face. There are two possible mechanisms for such shear load transfer:

[1] By friction grip.

In such joints the fastener provides a clamping force (a tensile axial force in the fastener, which is the resultant of uniaxial tensile stress in the fastener) and the shear load is transmitted directly between the components by friction on the mating faces. The contact stresses between the components at the mating face are usually much less than the stresses in the fasteners. The maximum load which can be transmitted is the product of the fastener clamping force and the coefficient of friction. Obtaining a high and consistent coefficient of friction requires surface preparation of the components being joined. If the load to be transmitted exceeds the limiting friction value there will be slip and the fastener will then be in bearing and shear. The size of the area clamped is usually not significant, only the total clamping force (per fastener). Special grip strips very hard particles which embed into the component materials and are carried in a support film are available for extreme load capacity applications.

[2] By fastener bearing + shear

Bearing

F
Shear

F
Bearing

In such joints the shearing load is first transmitted from one component to the fastener by bearing that is, by compressive stresses distributed over the contact area (which is approximately a half-cylinder) then transmitted along the fastener as a transverse shear stress, and finally into the second component by bearing. The maximum load which can be transmitted may be limited either by bearing strength of the contact surfaces between each component or by shear strength of the fastener cross-section at the mating face. The first of these depends on (i) the bearing areas (diameter times thickness) in each component times the lesser of the bearing strengths of the fastener material and the component material, while the second depends on the cross-sectional area of the fastener at the interface and the shear strength of the fastener material. That is, the bearing strength depends on the product of fastener diameter by (component) thickness, while the shear strength depends on fastener diameter squared. In a balanced design, these strengths would be about equal; this means that with thin components made from low-bearing-strength materials we would have a larger number of small-diameter fasteners, while for thick components of highbearing strength-material we use a small number of large-diameter fasteners.

Overload of friction grip fasteners

For the friction-grip fastener operating at a load greater than the maximum friction load the material in the fastener will be in a state of combined stress tensile stress due to the clamping force used to produce the friction grip, and shear stress due to the additional load transmitted by the shear + bearing. The limit for this combined stress state would usually be decided on a simple maximum shear stress criterion.

Joints with multiple fasteners

For such joints the distribution of the total load to the individual fasteners depends on the stiffnesses of the components being joined and the effective stiffnesses of the fasteners. Friction grip fasteners can provide an even distribution of load provided the clamping forces are controlled, and this can be done in several ways. For fasteners in bearing + shear it is necessary to avoid misalignment between holes in the two components and ensure a good fit of the fasteners in the holes. When uniform distribution is achieved, a practical first approximation to the forces transmitted by the individual fasteners in a group may be obtained as follows: [1] Find the centroid for the cross-section areas of the fasteners. [2] Express the load to be transmitted be the fastener group as a shear force through the centroid plus a torque Q. [3] Divide the shear force equally over the fasteners that is, the force is proportional to the cross-sectional area of the fastener. The torque is distributed over the fasteners such that the additional shear stress for each fastener is proportional to the radial distance of each fastener from the centroid of the fastener group. If the fasteners have the same cross-sectional area, Q is the torque with respect to the centroid, and the fasteners a, b, , , n are at distances ra, rb, , , rn from the centroid with shear forces due to torque of Fa, Fb, , , Fn then:

Q Fi ri
i a

and proportionality requires that:

Fa Fb F n ra rb rn

and thus for each fastener:

Fi Qri

r
i a

If the fasteners have unequal areas it is necessary to write the stress in each fastener as i = kri, so that Fi = kAiri and then use the torque equation Q Fi ri
i a n

to find k and finally back-substitute.

Single and Double Shear

The simplest way of joining two thin components by means of one or more fasteners is to place one component over the other and have the fastener directly clamp the two together. This is known as a single lap joint, and the load is transferred from component to component by friction between the contact faces or by bearing plus shear (or a combination of both), as described above. However, because the middle layers of the two components are offset the whole lap joint will be subjected to bending, and the system will try to align itself. In the absence of external restraint of the joint, this produces uneven bearing, a tensile force in the fastener, and a bending moment in the fastener as well. The eccentricity can be avoided if one component has a forked end, while the other is a blade which fits inside the fork, the fastener passing through the three parts. This produces a double-lap joint, so that the fastener is in double shear: one half of the load is transmitted as shear in the fastener on each side of the blade. The ideal joint is the double-strap butt joint: the components are butted together in line, and there is a joining strap on each face. Each fastener is in double shear, but there is additional mass in the butt straps. When surface projection is unacceptable a single-strap butt joint may be used, but care must be taken to minimise bending effects in the joint.