The reliability and safety of bolted joints is one of the crucial engineering problems during design of mechanical structures. In this paper, finite element method was used to investigate an asymmetrical, seven-bolted joint. The modelling takes into account the phenomenon of friction and the mechanics of contact between the joined elements. The bolts were preloaded using two different approaches: single and multi-pass. The damage of a bolt was simulated by its removal from the model. The conducted research showed influence of the number of preloading passes and its order on the forces acting in bolts both before and after damage. The obtained results were validated by experimental tests and presented as force diagrams for all investigated cases.

During measurements, the crankshafts of marine engines are usually supported on a set of rigid prisms. Such prisms maintain a constant height position, cause different values of reaction forces and, consequently, may cause elastic deformations of the crankshafts. Thus, the measurements of the dimensions and geometry of the crankshaft may be distorted. This article proposes a measuring system developed to support the crankshaft with a set of flexible supports. These supports implemented the given reaction forces, which ensured the elimination of the crankshaft deformations, regardless of the possible deviations, i.e., in the coaxiality of the main crankshaft journals. The values of these forces were calculated using the finite element method (FEM). These calculations showed that in order to eliminate the crankshaft deformations, the values of the reaction forces must change not only on individual supports, but also with the change of the shaft rotation angle during the measurement. The numerical experiments showed that the application of flexible supports results in uniform contact reaction forces on adjacent main journal supports. This uniformity occurs regardless of the quality of the crankshaft geometry. Thus, the necessity to use a set of flexible supports for measuring marine engine crankshafts was confirmed. The research also showed that the values of the reaction forces ensuring the elimination of shaft deflections under the assumption of nodal support can be treated as corresponding to the resultant reaction forces realized by the prismatic heads.

This paper presents a new method for calculating maximal collision forces in kinematic chains based on their impulses. Its main advantage is its simplicity as it is based on algebraic equations. Collisions between the feed, hammer and rotor in a hammer crusher are used as a case study to show the...

This paper presents the results of an experimental analysis of the distribution of transverse stiffness of cylindrical compression helical springs with selected values of geometric parameters. The influence of the number of active coils and the design of the end coils on the transverse stiffness distribution was investigated. Experimental tests were carried out for 18 sets of spring samples that differed in the number of active coils, end-coil design and spring index, and three measurements were taken per sample, at two values of static axial deflection. The transverse stiffness in the radial directions were tested at every 30° angle. A total of 1,296 measurements were taken, from which the transverse stiffness distributions were determined. It was shown that depending on the direction of deflection, the differences between the highest and lowest value of transverse stiffness of a given spring can exceed 25%. The experimental results were compared with the results of the formulas for transverse stiffness available in the literature. It was shown that in the case of springs with a small number of active coils, discrepancies between the average transverse stiffness of a given spring and the transverse stiffness calculated based on literature relations can reach several tens of percent. Analysis of the results of the tests carried out allowed conclusions to be drawn, making it possible to estimate the suitability of a given computational model for determining the transverse stiffness of a spring with given geometrical parameters.

Compliant contact force models were developed and mainly used to investigate simple impacts of two bodies. It is therefore unclear how they will perform in more complex cases, where simultaneous, multi-zone impact may occur. The aim of this study is to investigate phenomena that occur in such impacts and to study the effectiveness of preselected contact force models in their modelling. For this purpose, the study addressed collisions that occur in a collinear system of 3 to 6 particles made of steel, aluminium, and bronze. The results obtained for each force model were referenced to the FEM analysis. To compare the performance of the models, the Benchmark Velocity Indicator (BVI) is proposed. The study showed that during simultaneous, multi-zone impact direct switch from the restitution to compression phases may occur and subsequent collision along the same normal may take place. Such phenomena are not incorporated in current compliant contact force models; therefore, the study showed the need for their further improvement. The best models proposed by Kogut and Etsion (KE) and Jackson and Green (JG) achieved average errors equal to 3.89% and 4.15%, respectively. However, the same models in their worst cases reached error values of 38.66% and 33.77%. The article concludes with proposals for future improvements.