Bolted flange

Do four M8 bolts tightened to 20 N m keep this flange closed under a 30 kN pull?

You ask

Do four M8 bolts at 20 N m keep this flange closed under a 30 kN pull?

Wobbl runs

Terminal
$ wobbl simulate flange.py "Do four M8 bolts at 20 N m keep this flange closed under a 30 kN pull?" \  --physics bolts -m mild-steel --fix "body 1 and bottom" \  --load "30 kN +z @ body 2 and top" --bolt "M8 8.8 torque 20 N*m" \  --quality fast --set playback=true --no-open
The flange, bolted, as the run left it at 30,000 N

Load 30,000 N

peak von Mises

93.9 MPa

HOLDS

Most loaded bolt 12.6 kN, clamp through the contact 20.4 kN

Open the full report

Checks, numbers and charts

HOLDS4 M8 8.8 bolts tightened to 12.5 kN (20 N m of torque with a nut factor of 0.2 (T = K F d)). Under the load the worst bolt carries 12.6 kN, 59% of its proof load, and 4.41 kN of clamp is left at the interface. It holds without opening or slipping. Confidence is medium.

Worst bolt
12.6 kN
Proof use
59%
Least clamp
4.41 kN
Confidence
medium
  • passmesh convergence
  • warncontact convergence
  • passforce balance
  • passpreload
  • infoclamped stiffness
  • infohand calculation
  • passbolt strength
  • passtightening
  • passseparation
  • passhead pressure
  • passthread stripping
summary.txt
HOLDS. 4 M8 8.8 bolts tightened to 12.5 kN (20 N m of torque with a nut factor of 0.2 (T = K F d)). Under the load the worst bolt carries 12.6 kN, 59% of its proof load, and 4.41 kN of clamp is left at the interface. It holds without opening or slipping. Confidence is medium. Confidence: medium. contact convergence: least clamp force left at an interface 4669 -> 4413 N over two meshes, last change 5.8% (of the preload when it is near zero)worst bolt: 12.6 kNproof use: 59%least clamp: 4.41 kNslip safety: no shearpreload: 12.5 kN Checks:  [pass] mesh convergence: force in the most loaded bolt settled: 12604 -> 12602 N over 2 meshes, last change 0.0%  [warn] contact convergence: least clamp force left at an interface 4669 -> 4413 N over two meshes, last change 5.8% (of the preload when it is near zero)  [pass] force balance: reactions balance the loads to 5.1e-06% (forces) and 9.7e-06% (moments)  [pass] preload: after tightening the bolts carry 12.5, 12.5, 12.5, 12.5 kN against the 12.5, 12.5, 12.5, 12.5 kN asked, within 5.6e-05%  [info] clamped stiffness: the parts under M8 8.8 at (-31.8, -31.8, 28) squeeze by 0.526 um per kN in the FEA against 0.923 um per kN through VDI 2230's cone (tan phi 0.512, outside diameter 29.9 mm), -43%. The cone is a hand model; the FEA follows the real shape  [info] hand calculation: VDI 2230 gives M8 8.8 at (-31.8, -31.8, 28) 7500 N of the pull and 1086 N more bolt force (load factor 0.145); the FEA bolt gains 102 N (0.09x). Less, because the load enters the parts away from the head and nut, nearer the interface (VDI's load introduction factor below 1); the FEA follows where the load really enters, so it governs  [pass] bolt strength: the most loaded bolt, M8 8.8 at (31.8, -31.8, 28), carries 12.6 kN, 344 MPa on its 36.6 mm2 stress area, 59% of the 580 MPa proof stress  [pass] tightening: while tightening, tension and thread torque together reach 57% of the yield stress of M8 8.8 (VDI 2230 allows 90%)  [pass] separation: 4.41 kN of the 12.7 kN clamp is left at the interface under M8 8.8 at (31.8, -31.8, 28), where VDI 2230 has 6.09 kN and the joint opening at 14.6 kN of pull on that bolt  [pass] head pressure: the head and nut press 296 MPa on the Mild steel (ASTM A36), against about 480 MPa it takes before it sinks (1.2 times its tensile strength, near VDI 2230's limiting surface pressures)  [pass] thread stripping: a standard nut's thread shears at 2.1 times the load that breaks M8 8.8, so the bolt would break first Assumptions:  - Wobbl guessed: friction coefficient between the clamped parts not given, so Wobbl assumed 0.15.  - Wobbl guessed: nut factor K in T = K F d not given, so Wobbl assumed 0.2.  - 20 n m of torque with a nut factor of 0.2 (t = k f d) gives 12.5 kn. Torque tightening scatters the preload by about 25% either way, so a torque wrench reading is not a measured preload.  - M8 8.8: stress area 36.6 mm2, proof stress 580 MPa, yield 640 MPa (ISO 898-1); head and nut bear on a 11.6 mm ring (ISO 4014 and ISO 4032).  - Each bolt is a spring with VDI 2230's stiffness of head, thread and nut, between rigid rings under its head and nut, with the bending and shear stiffness of its core. The shank does not touch the hole, so once the parts slide nothing but friction and the bolt's bending holds them.  - The clamped parts touch through penalty contact with friction 0.15 (VDI 2230 lists 0.1 to 0.23 for dry steel and 0.1 to 0.28 for aluminum). Embedding of the surfaces, which loses a few percent of preload, is not modeled.  - The hand calculation shares the load between bolts as a rigid flange would and takes it into the joint at the head and nut (load introduction factor 1), which overstates the bolt's extra load and understates the load that opens the joint.  - Materials are linear elastic and deflections small. Images: stress: images/stress.png, pressure: images/pressure.png, playback: playback.jsonReport: report.html

About this example

Two 14 mm steel flanges, 120 mm across with a 50 mm bore, are held face to face by four M8 class 8.8 bolts on a 90 mm circle, the way two lengths of pipe or a shaft and a hub are joined. The flanges are separate bodies, so they press together where the bolts squeeze them and can open apart elsewhere. Wobbl finds the bolts from the four holes that run through both flanges (the bore is too wide to be a bolt hole), tightens each to the preload its torque gives, then pulls the top flange off the bottom one.

Result Value
Verdict holds, the flanges stay pressed together under the 30 kN pull
Preload 12.5 kN in each bolt, from 20 N m with a nut factor of 0.2
Worst bolt 12.6 kN under the pull, 59% of the 21.2 kN proof load
Clamp left 4.41 kN at the least clamped bolt (4.4 to 5.7 kN over the four), down from 12.5 kN
Margin to opening VDI 2230 puts the opening load at 14.6 kN of pull per bolt against the 7.5 kN each bolt takes
Hand calculation VDI 2230 leaves 6.09 kN of clamp and adds 1.09 kN to each bolt, the FEA adds 0.1 kN because the load enters the flange away from the bolts
Mesh convergence worst bolt force 12,604 then 12,602 N, least clamp 4,669 then 4,413 N (5.8% apart, so confidence is medium)
Equilibrium force and moment balance to 5e-6% and 1e-5%
Time the two meshes of 3,936 and 5,464 nodes were predicted to take 649 s together and took 791 s on a busy machine

The run writes output/scene.wobbl, the 3D view embedded in output/report.html. In it the bolts tighten and the flanges press together, then the pull comes on and the clamp between them falls, increment by increment. output/playback.json holds the same frames as plain arrays, with each bolt’s force.

Run it yourself

Terminal
$ git clone https://github.com/sohan-bhat/wobbl$ cd wobbl/examples/bolted-flange && ./run.sh

The part, the script and every output are in examples/bolted-flange on GitHub.