Bolt preload loss

Altair Forum User

Hello,

I want to calculate the loss of the preload of a bolt due to the elastic behavior of the material. I want to model the bolt as a pretension spring (Type_32) according to the Tutorial Cantilever Beam with Bolt Pretension. My Problem now is that I don't know what to do to get the loss in the preload. I Tried using IFUN1 to match Force and displacement but I don't get any results.

Any ideas?

Thanks a lot!

Altair Forum User

Hi Cassandra,

1) Please request time history for the spring and you can plot forces and moments and plot for forces vs displacement

this way you can find out what is the force as the bolt contracts.

to create time history file,

go to Analysis page-->output block-->select the spring element and click create.

next, card edit the output block and change the type to spring within the card.

Please refer to help documents for more information on /TH/SPRING