Comparison of numerical analysis methods for progressive damage analysis in composite bolted joints and suggestion of new method for bolted joints analysis

Joints are the most important parts of composite structures، because of their more sensitivity to load transmission، stress concentration and adherents differences (in materials، geometries and boundary conditions). Numerical analysis of all mechanical joints in big structures is costly in time and memory usage. In big structures، precise numerical analysis of mechanical joints needs to an appropriate criterion to find the critical joint. In this paper different modeling methods on analysis of mechanical joints are compared to each others. The numerical analysis is done by means of ABAQUS-6. 11. 1 finite element (FE) code. Predicted elastic modulus، the joint strength (maximum force) and load-displacement trends are compared with experimental results and time cost of modeling are compared to each others. Result study shown that the elastic modulus and the joint strength are better predicted in the improved Solid-Shell model. Beam-Shell model predicted a good elastic modulus in the joint، although the joint strength is predicted less than experiments. The final suggestion of this paper to time saving purpose in joint analysis of a big structure with many joints is to start the analysis of all joints with Beam-Shell model and finding the failed mechanical joints. In second step، just the failed joints should be re-model with improved Shell-Solid model and the structure should be checked for joint failure again