Design of a Tribometer to Study Friction inThreaded Fastener Interfaces

Abstract: Bolts and nuts are one of most common joining methods since they are simple and low-cost to connect parts. Appropriate clamp force from bolted joint remains resultant joints secured, but higher/lower preload on bolted joint increases risk of the failure of mechanism. Therefore, achieving accurate clamp force in bolted joint is always the aim of tightening process. Torque control tightening tool are the most common tightening tool present in the market. The clamp force obtained from torque control tightening is highly dependent upon friction. Only small part of applied torque is transferred into the effective torque that turns in to clamp forces because most of applied torque is consumed by friction forces under bolt /nut head and in a thread interface. However, friction coefficient does not remain constant during tightening process and it relates to many factors such as tightening speed, speed profile, tightening time, joint’s material, etc. Hence, it changes the distribution ratio and leads to an error in estimation of clamp force between the components. This project aims to develop a tribometer which is capable of operating in different speeds and load conditions corresponding to different tightening process. A new concept of pin-on-disc tribometer is proposed and the speed and load profile are achieved by using closed loop control in the linear actuator and the motor. The test rig was built up and the several validation tests were done.