FAILURE IN LUG JOINTS AND PLATES WITH HOLES

The tangential stress distribution around the perimeter of a circular hole in an aerospace lug joint has been analysed under various longitu dinal and lateral pin loads using finite element (FE) analysis. Becaus e there is a general shortage of comprehensive and relable data for lu g-shaped components, the FE model has initially been generated for a r ectangular plate containing a central hole, and this has been validate d using theoretical and experimentally obtained data. The FE mesh has been modified to model a standard lug, as used in the aircraft industr y, and different longitudinal and lateral load cases have been conside red, thus representing different pin or bolt fit scenarios. The conseq uence of the effective bolt size and load direction has been found to affect significantly the resulting stress magnitude and position, and this has important implications for both fatigue and fracture analyses .