Performance of Bolted Joint Modelling Using Master Element

Energy dissipation at the interfaces of the mechanical joints is the primary source of damping in many rotor dynamics structures as well as built-up structures. In the majority of structures, micro- and macro-slips at the interfaces are the mechanisms for energy dissipation. Modelling of the dissipation using detailed finite element (FE) of the joint interfaces is computationally very expensive. Consequently, it places severe restrictions in the application of detailed FE methods to real-life structures for capturing energy dissipation at joints. In the present work, a reduced-order Masing’s model is adopted to model overlapping joint interfaces. The dynamic contact of the overlapping interface is captured using coupled normal and tangential Masing’s contact rate forms in commercial FE software through the user-defined subroutine. Masing’s parameters are established from the detailed FE model of isolated bolt structure. It is found that the reduced-order modelling is well suitable for capturing dissipation energies without the need for the detailed finite element methods.