Bearing failure and influence factors analysis of metal-to-composite bolted joints at high temperature

In this paper, experiments were conducted to study the tensile performance of metal-to-composite bolted joints at room temperature and 250 °C. Furthermore, numerical models were developed to simulate tensile behavior of the joint. After achieving a decent validation between numerical models and experimental results, more detailed studies were conducted through finite element models to find out the influence of temperature, bolt material, the thickness of composite laminate and stacking sequence on tensile properties of the joint at room temperature and 250 °C. The research showed that temperature significantly affects the bearing strength of the joint. Around 42–50% decrease in bearing strength was observed at 250 °C as compared to room temperature. Stacking sequence variations have a little more effect on bearing strength at higher temperature than at room temperature. With the change of stacking sequences, around 11–24% variation in bearing strength was observed at 250 °C as compared to 8–20% at room temperature.