Experimental and numerical analysis of aluminum-aluminum bolted joints subject to an indentation process

Abstract The increasing interest of the industry (especially automotive, aviation and marine) in the fastener joints (riveted, bolted, etc.) between metallic materials, has re-opened the study on the possibility to improve the performance of the drilled structure using plastic deformation processes. Indentation process, performed before the drilling operation, creates circumferential compression stresses around the hole which increase significantly the mechanical performance of the drilled structures. In this paper, static and the fatigue performances of aluminum–aluminum (AW 6082-T6) single-lap bolted joints are studied. In particular, the study compares the mechanical strength of only drilled single-lap bolted joints (OD specimens) and single-lap bolted joints subject to an indentation process (IP specimens). In order to determine the cycles to failure and the corresponding Wohler diagram, several fatigue tests are performed. The analyses allow to determine the mechanical performance and the failure mode of the analyzed joints. Several numerical analysis, conducted in ANSYS environment on three-dimensional models of the single-lap joint, are focused on the evaluation of the residual stress on the indented plate and, in particular, to compare the stress distribution on both type of analyzed joints.