A REANALYSIS ON FATIGUE DATA OF ALUMINUM-ALLOY BOLTED JOINTS

A great deal of work has been done in the last years to improve the st ate of knowledge on fatigue behaviour of aluminium bolted joints, as w ell as the calculation methods and design standards. This paper summar izes the results of a statistical analysis performed on ca 750 fatigue data reported in the literature or, more recently, obtained by severa l laboratories. All data are pertinent to friction and bearing-type al uminium butt splice bolted joints. In spite of the fact that a large n umber of factors could theoretically influence the fatigue behaviour a nd the failure modes of the joints (yield stress of the plates, type o f bolts, bolt pattern, bolts to member ratio, nominal load ratio, surf ace finishing, plate thickness and so on), it will be demonstrated tha t all data can be summarized in a very reduced number of scatter bands the reference values of which, being related to different probabiliti es of survival, can be used for establishing trends, planning future r esearch and for design purposes. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.