Bolt Settings

Table of contents

• About
• Usage
  • Import Bolt Settings
• General Settings
• Rivet/Bolt Code Editor
  • Material grade
  • Friction Class
  • Tension resistance factor
  • Tension/Shear resistance factor
  • Friction safety factor
  • Hole type factors
  • Category
  • Available parameters
  • Available load parameters
• FAT Class Editor

About

General preference for rivets and bolts is managed by the “Bolt Settings” object. This is useful for turning the plotting of “Bolt Id number” on/off or to edit the default values. The object is used for editing or adding bolt/rivet codes. The object is optional and can be deleted from the model if not used.

Usage

Click “Bolt Settings” to add the Bolt Settings object to the model tree.

Existing data in the preference file “boltToolkitPref.py” is used when the settings is added.

• To Import Bolt Settings from a selected previous version right-click and select “Import Bolt Settings”.
• To revert the Rivet/Bolt/General Settings right-click and select “Reset Bolt Settings”.
• To update (and overwrite) the global preference file “boltToolkitPref.py” right-click and select “Save Bolt Settings”. A pop-up question “Overwrite existing Bolt Setting defaults?” prompts the user to confirm or cancel the save. (A backup copy of the app default values are saved in the file “boltToolkitPrefDefault.py”.)

The Rivet/Bolt Codes and FAT Class are not modified by the “Save Bolt Settings”. They have separate save buttons, see the sections below.

Import Bolt Settings

When updating/migrating from a previous version of Bolt Toolkit use the “Import Bolt Settings” to browse for the folder with the preference files.

The General Settings from the source folder (boltToolkitPref.py) are loaded to the current Bolt Settings object so the changes can be inspected before using the “Save Bolt Settings”.

The import of Materials, Rivet Code, Bolt Code and FAT Class will import the data from corresponding files (Materials.json, rivetCodes.json, boltCodes.json, fatClassDict.json) and add only if a name is missing, i.e. not over-writing existing names.

The import of Advanced Bolt geometry csv files will only add if a file is missing.

A pop-up window will display all the identified imports with the option to confirm (OK) or abort (Cancel) the import.
The ACT Log File will list the name of all imported items.

If you have made edits of the existing codes, e.g. “Eurocode 3”, in previous version you have to apply the changes using the Rivet/Bolt Code Editor or in a text editor on the corresponding files.

General Settings

(i) Store Results At

If the Analysis Setting/Output Controls is “Store Results At = All Time Points” and the result file contains many sub steps this setting can limit post processing to “Last Time Point” for each load step to speed up post processing time.
If the Analysis Setting/Output Controls is “Store Results At = Last Time Point” then this setting does not influence the post processing time.
Changing this property has only effect before solving and post processing the model.

(ii) Post processing MAPDL license

Default,Mechanical Pro,Mechanical Premium,Mechanical Enterprise,Mechanical Enterprise PrepPost,Mechanical Enterprise Solver

(iii) Calculate Utilization/Safety Factor

Result items are listed as “Utilization factor”, Uf*. If selecting “Safety Factor” result items are evaluated as Safety Factor, SF = 1/Uf

(iv) Scale Only Pretension Change

In previous versions setting a “Scale Factor Value” other than one (1.0) scaled all bolt forces and moments including “Normal Force” and “Contact Normal Force”.
The new default “Scale Only Pretension Change = Yes” will scale the change in “Normal Force”, i.e. “Pretension Change” and keep “Contact Normal Force” un-scaled.
The evaluation of result items “Normal Force”, “Uf_tension”, “Contact Normal Force” and “Uf_slip” is therefore correct since the pretension force is not scaled.
In “Random Vibration” or “Response Spectrum” analyses the “Scale Only Pretension Change” does not influence the results since the static pretension force is not part of the solution.

(v) Edit Rivet/Bolt Code

When selecting “New” an empty set of properties are displayed.
When selecting an existing code the corresponding properties are loaded.

Rivet/Bolt Code Editor

The Rivet/Bolt Code Editor is used to modify an existing code or to create a new. E.g. add more material grades or adjust an evaluation criteria.

The interface loads data from the file “boltToolkitPref.py”. New and modified codes are saved in a separate file, “rivetCodes.json” and “boltCodes.json”, in the app installation folder. This file is loaded and replaces the app original data when postprocessing.

To revert to the app original data the file “rivetCodes.json” or “boltCodes.json” can be deleted. When migrating to a new version of Bolt Toolkit the files can be copied to the new app installation folder.

The Rivet and Bolt codes are similar but the Bolt codes contains some additional properties marked with “(bolt)”.

(i) New Code Name

If using the same name the code is updated.
If naming “delete”, “del”, “clear” or “remove” the selected code is deleted.

Material grade

The material tabular editor loads the available Material Grades from the selected code.
The following restrictions apply:

• fyb, fyr > 0
• fub, fur > 0
• alphav > 0. Default = 0.6
• gammaM2 > 0. Default = 1.0
• gammaL >= 0. Default = 0.0 (Optional)
  If gammaL > 0 it sets the result Scale Factor Value.

Friction Class

The Friction Class “Name” is free to define.
The following restrictions apply:

• mu >= 0. Default = 0.0
• hf >= 0. Default = 0.0 (Optional)

If mu or hf equals zero (=0) it is undefined and will not be saved in the code.

Tension resistance factor

For Rivets the k2 factor is a single value.
For Bolts the k2 factor can take options “Yes” and “No” and is used in Eurocode 3 to specify if “Countersunk bolt” is used.

• k2 > 0. Default = 1.0

Tension/Shear resistance factor

The ktv factor can take options “Yes” and “No” and is used in Eurocode 3 to specify if “Cut thread comply with EN 1090”.

• ktv > 0. Default = 1.0

Friction safety factor

The gammaM3 safety factor can apply to each individual Category.

Available Category names: A bearing/B slip-resistant at serviceability/C slip-resistant at ultimate/C slip critical/D non-preloaded/E preloaded/F shear and tension

• gammaM3 > 0. Default = 1.0

Hole type factors

The hole type factors, ks, kb and kv can apply to each individual Hole type.

Available Hole type names: Normal/Oversized/Slotted (perpendicular)/Slotted (parallel)/Long Slotted (perpendicular)/Long Slotted (parallel)

• ks, kb, kv >= 0. Default = 1.0

Category

The Category tabular data sets what evaluations to be included in each Category.

Available Category names: A bearing/B slip-resistant at serviceability/C slip-resistant at ultimate/C slip critical/D non-preloaded/E preloaded/F shear and tension

Available parameters

(i) Parameters As, Am, Wb, Ws are also available as Load parameters and are defined in “mm”.

Available load parameters

The internal parameter pFact is be used to convert stress from [MPa] to [Pa]. e.g. Structural Stress Utilization: “(Snb/pFact)/(FtRd/As)”

FAT Class Editor

The FAT Class Editor is used to modify or add new FAT class S-N data.

The interface loads data from the file “boltToolkitPref.py”. The modified data is saved in a separate file, “fatClassDict.json”, in the app installation folder. This file is loaded and replaces the app original data when postprocessing.

To revert to the app original data the file “fatClassDict.json” can be deleted. When migrating to a new version of Bolt Toolkit the file can be copied to the new app installation folder.

The following restrictions apply:

• FAT > 0
• 0 <= N0 < Nfat < Nc < Ncutoff If N0 = 0 then m0 is ignored.
• 0 < m0, 0 < m1, 0 < m2