Riveted Joint Structure With Crack Stress Intensity Factor Parameter Analysis

Riveted joint is one of major form of mechanical connection with a large number of applications in engineering structures.When damage crack occurs in these riveted joints,the load transferred by each rivet is re-distributed,which makes a change to the load transformation rate of each rivet.In the meantime,further crack propagation may result in a sudden fail of the riveted joint.Therefore,it is important to study the cracked riveted joints.In this paper,a finite element model is proposed to study riveted lap joints,riveted butt joints and riveted-bonding joints by using three-dimensional finite element and contact element.A parametric analysis is conducted by the commercial software to calculate the in-plane load transferred by each rivet for the riveted joint without and with a crack at the first rivet.Stress intensity factor at the crack tip is also studied in this paper.The numerical results show that the existence of a symmetric crack at the first rivet can result in a decrease in in-plane load carried by the first rivet and an increase in in-plane load transferred(LT) by the other rivets.A linear distribution of stress intensity factor(SIF) for short cracks and non-linear distribution of SIF for long cracks are obtained for the same in-plane load level.