Investigation of the effect of clamping force on the strength and failure of composite laminate bolted joints under dynamic loading

Due to the stress concentration in the joints, these areas are critical in designing composite structures. Applying a clamping force on this region is considered to be effective in preventing of delamination failure of composite layers in the vicinity of the joint. Clamping force notably affects the failure modes of bolted joints. The effect of applying a pre-load on the strength of composite laminate bolted joints under dynamic loading is numerically investigated in this study. The results show that applying a pre-load on the joints not only increases the resistance of the composite structure but also decreases the percentage of delamination of layers of the composite structure in these areas. Furthermore, it is shown that the delamination in the outer layers of the composite plate is greater than that in the inner layers.