Simulation of prestressed screw joints in complex structures

This paper deals with complex structures consisting of several parts of shell structures which are connected by prestressed screw joints. Since the stress component normal to the midsurface of the shell is assumed to be zero, the contact between the shell midsurfaces is approached by a special one-dimensional contact element which links the midsurfaces pointwise at the positions where the screws are attached. The contact model consists of a prestrained truss element simulating the elastic behavior of the prestrained grip of the bolt and of an equivalent beam/truss element imitating the contact behavior of the flanges to be joined. The parameters of these elements are obtained from the three-dimensional finite-element analysis of a single prestrained screw joint with consideration of the real contact problem. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.