Efficient assembly of bolted joints using numerical FEM

Several factors can cause leakages in a bolted flange connection, external loads being the most important one. External loads such as those produced by misalignment introduce an external axial load combined with a bending moment which could lead to either an excessive compression of the gasket and its subsequent crushing, and/or a separation of the flanges causing leakage failure. Several studies have been carried out to study these prejudicial effects, but no practical solutions are proposed to compensate for them. In this sense, this work presents a numerical methodology that iteratively calculates the non-uniform bolt tightening load distribution to achieve a uniform gasket stress distribution that improves the leakage performance of bolted joints subjected to external loads.