An Experimental Study of Bearing and Thread Friction in Fasteners

Abstract

An experimental procedure is proposed for studying the underhead and thread friction in fasteners. The effective bearing friction radius, the underhead friction coefficient, and the thread friction coefficient are experimentally determined for fasteners with standard hexagonal heads and for flanged head fasteners. Hence, greater accuracy has been achieved in determining the value of the torque components that are consumed in overcoming friction in threaded fasteners. This would lead to a more reliable torque-tension correlation and would enhance the safety and quality of bolted assemblies. A design of experiment procedure is presented in order to investigate the effect of fastener material class, the thread pitch, and the fastener size on thread friction coefficient. For the underhead bearing friction, an experimental model is presented in order to determine the effect of the radii ratio of the contact area on the bearing friction radius.