PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - 737NGs have cracked 'pickle forks' after finding several in the jets.
Old 16th Oct 2019, 16:29
  #254 (permalink)  
Pilot DAR
Moderator
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Ontario, Canada
Age: 63
Posts: 5,611
Received 60 Likes on 43 Posts
In a clamped joint with high tensile bolts, the bolts are not (supposed to be) subjected to shear loads, which are carried by friction between the surfaces which are clamped together by the bolts.
In a standard structural lap joint in an aircraft, the fastener shear load capacity is the predominant load path. There is no conventional methodology to calculate, and then later control the factors of friction for the purpose of carrying a structural load across a lap joint. So bolts and rivets are primarily subjected to the shear loads, which is why they, the hole preparation, and their installation is such a controlled process. If joint friction were to be a factor in lap joint structural capacity, that would be akin to bonding a joint. Bonding a joint in a lap joint is certainly done, and very common in composite structure, though less common in metal structure.

An important factor in bonding, beyond the capacity of the bonded joint itself, is that the bonding excludes contaminates from the joint. If the primary structural lap joint were to be depending upon friction for load carrying, what would happen when oil seeped into it? The friction would go away! You'd sure hope then that the fasteners would carry the load in shear! This can be better understood in real life, in that friction is a factor when properly torquing nuts and bolts, to assure that the designed torque is not exceeded.

In most cases, torquing specifies "dry threads", because the many different types of lubricants, if applied to the threads of the fastener being torqued, could dramatically change the achieved torque, and thus tension applied to the bolt while torquing. When experimenting, I have managed to snap off 125ksi aircraft bolts in their normal torquing range, by applying really good lubricants to the threads. Friction is very hard to predict and calculate, but the lack of friction is really easy to figure out, and quite achievable with a good lubricant. My structural designs rely on standard methodology fastener shear allowables calculated to carry the entire load of a structural lap joint in shear.
Pilot DAR is offline