Experimental and numerical investigation on bolted joint in glass–fiber reinforced composites

In this paper, vacuum assisted resin injection technique was employed to prepare the composite laminates with different plies ways. The macro-mechanical performances of the bolted joint of the composite laminates were investigated by experimental and finite element simulation. The influence mechanism of different parameters on the joint performance and failure models of the composite laminates were analyzed. A VUMAT subroutine was developed, according to the failure criteria and corresponding stiffness degradation criteria, to describe the progressive damage process of bolted joint composite laminates through finite element analysis method. The results indicated that the failure strength of composite laminates would be improved with the increasing of tightening torque, and the strength of three-ply-way hybrid composite laminates is higher than that of two-way hybrid laminates. The comparisons between numerical simulation results and experimental results showed that the developed subroutine can effectively predict the macroscopic response of bolted joint glass–fiber reinforced composite laminates.