Effects of nut thinning due to corrosion on the strength characteristics and the sealing performance of bolted flange joints under internal pressure

The effects of nut thinning due to corrosion on the strength characteristic and the sealing performance in 3B bolted flange joints under internal pressure are examined from both FEM calculations and experiments. The following results are obtained. When bolts and nuts in a bolted flange joint are tightened with 50% of yield stress, no yield region at the engaged screw thread occurs, however, when they are tightened with 90% of the yield stress, a small scale yield region occurs at the roots of the engaged three screw threads fi'om the bearing surface of the nut. While verifying this phenomenon using FEM, it was newly discovered that when the height of the nut was reduced to 113 (equivalent to approximately two threads) of the original dimensions according to the standards, the sealing performance could no longer be assured.