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Finite Element Simulation of Bolt-Up Process of

Pipe Flange Connections

Article in Journal of Pressure Vessel Technology August 2001

DOI: 10.1115/1.1358842

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Kyoto Institute of Technology
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Toshimichi Fukuoka
Professor,
e-mail: fukuoka@cc.kshosen.ac.jp
Mem. ASME
Tomohiro Takaki
Research Associate,
e-mail: takaki@cc.kshosen.ac.jp
Department of Ocean Electro-
Mechanical Engineering,
Kobe University of Mercantile Marine,
Higashinada, Kobe, Japan
Finite Element Simulation of
Bolt-Up Process of Pipe Flange
Connections
Achieving uniform bolt preload is difficult when tightening a pipe flange with a number of
bolts. Several bolt-tightening strategies have been proposed so far for achieving uniform
bolt preloads. It seems, however, that effective guidelines for tightening pipe flange con-
nections have not been established. In this study, a numerical approach is presented for
estimating the scatter in bolt preloads and achieving the uniform bolt preloads when
tightening each bolt one by one in an arbitrary order. Numerical analyses are conducted
using three-dimensional FEM as an elastic contact problem. The analytical objects are
pipe flanges specified in JIS B 2238 with an aluminum gasket inserted. The validity of the
numerical procedures proposed here is ascertained by experiment.
DOI: 10.1115/1.1358842

1 Introduction 2 Bolt-Up Procedures of Pipe Flange Connections

Pipe flanges are often connected by tightening a number of
bolts, one by one. It is well known that it is difficult to achieve
uniform bolt preloads at the completion of a tightening operation.
Such a resulting nonuniformity in bolt preloads is due to various
factors. In general practice, however, two factors presumably have
dominant effects on the nonuniform preloads for all types of gas-
keted pipe flange connections. One is traced to the tightening
method to be adopted. When tightening bolts using a torque con-
trol method, it is inevitable that the magnitude of bolt preload thus
produced is different, to some extent, from the target value. The
second is elastic interaction due to the flange deformation oc-
curring in the process of successive bolt tightening. It is predicted
that this latter has significant influence in cases of pipe flange
connection because bolts are placed very closely to each other on
the same circle.
An experimental procedure is proposed to achieve uniform bolt
preloads using experimental data obtained by repeatedly experi-
menting with the tightening process recommended in 1. How-
ever, the procedure requires experiments for each flange configu-
ration. A numerical procedure based on FEM is proposed for the
same purpose in 2. Because of the assumptions involved, a fairly
large amount of scatter in bolt preloads is observed. It is also
pointed out that there is a considerable amount of scatter in bolt
preloads, even if tightening a pipe flange without a gasket 3.
Two types of numerical approach are proposed in this paper,
for accurately estimating the scatter in bolt preloads and for
achieving uniform preloads with high precision, at the completion
of pipe flange assemblage. It is generally recognized that nonuni-
form bolt preloads are likely to encourage the leakage of liquid or
gas contents. Three-dimensional FEM is adopted for analyzing the
foregoing problems as elastic contact problem. Soft gaskets, with
low stiffness, are commonly used for preventing leakage. On the
other hand, solid-metal flat gaskets with linear elasticity are
treated here, since the primary purpose of this work is to suggest
how the tightening problem, stated in the foregoing, can be
solved.
Contributed by the Pressure Vessels and Piping Division and presented at the
Pressure Vessels and Piping Conference Joint N/ICPVT, Boston, Massachusetts,
August 15, 1999, of THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERS.
Manuscript received by the PVP Division, August 26, 2000; revised manuscript
received December 19, 2000. Editor: S. Y. Zantrik.
In tightening a pipe flange connection with a number of bolts,
several tightening sequences are proposed for the attainment of
uniform bolt preloads. In general practice, all the bolts are tight-
ened in a manner that a pair of bolts located 180 deg from each
other, are successively tightened. In this study, a numerical ap-
proach for solving the following problems is suggested. It is as-
sumed that in each case bolts are tightened one by one.
Problem 1: How many bolt preloads are retained in the final
state, when tightening bolts with target bolt preloads in an
arbitrary order?
Problem 2: How many initial bolt preloads are needed for
achieving uniform bolt preloads in the final state?
To elucidate the mechanical behaviors of pipe flange connec-
tions, a number of numerical analyses have so far been conducted,
e.g., with axisymmetric and three-dimensional FEM 4 and the
combination of finite difference method and FEM 5. Three-
dimensional elastic theory also has been successfully applied 6.
Recently, gasket load relaxation was analyzed with the effects of
creep taken into account 7. Nonlinear behaviors of gaskets are
investigated by three-dimensional FEM 8,9. It seems, however,
that few studies have been devoted to the tightening process of
pipe flange connections. A computer code, which can solve the
problems previously defined, is developed in this study for pro-
viding a better design strategy of pipe flange connections.
3 Numerical Analysis
3.1 Contact Problem. A numerical method for general
multi-body contact problems proposed by Fukuoka 10 is ex-
tended to analyze the bolt-up process treated here as a three-
dimensional elastic contact problem. Shear stresses on each con-
tact surface are assumed to be subject to Coulombs law of
friction. Because three-dimensional contact problems are in-
volved, five kinds of contact conditions are treated: 1 separation,
2 slip, 3 slip in the x direction and stick in the y direction, 4 slip
in the y direction and stick in the x direction, and 5 stick in all
directions. The z-axis is taken to be perpendicular to each contact
surface. Contact conditions are determined by iterative calcula-
tions for each contact node, these being, respectively, under one
of the foregoing five contact conditions.
3.2 Global Stiffness Equation. It is particularly difficult to
execute the stress analysis of threaded regions because of the
complex geometry involved with engaged threads. Since the basic

282 Vol. 123, AUGUST 2001 Copyright 2001 by ASME Transactions of the ASME
concern in this study is not the elucidation of stress distributions
around the engaged threads, but the evaluations of changes in bolt
stress, bolt and nut are simply modeled as a single elastic body
without contact surface. This simplification is expected to offer
better computation efficiency. In addition, by regarding all the
bolts used for clamping as one body, the numerical model em-
ployed here is reduced to three elastic bodies, such as the equiva-
lent model of bolt and nut, and flange and gasket, with two contact
surfaces, i.e., bearing surface of a bolt head and the gasket bearing
surface. Thus, the global stiffness equation to be solved is as
follows:
Ke 0 0 K eC1 0
ue
0 Kf 0 K f C1 K f C2 uf
0 0 Kg 0 K gC2 ug
K C1e K C1 f 0 K C1 0 R1
R2
0 K C2 f K C2g 0 K C2
where K e , K f , K g are stiffness matrices for equivalent model
of bolt and nut, flange and gasket, as in the case of an ordinary
one-body FE model. When n bolts are used, K e is represented
by the following equation:
K e1 0 0 0 constrained.
0 K e2 0 0
Ke 0 0 K e3 0 (2)

0 0 0 K en
where K e j is the stiffness matrix of jth equivalent model of bolt
and nut. Other matrices in Eq. 1 are associated with contact
conditions. Vectors such as u e and Q e represent nodal displace-
ment and force, respectively. i and R i designate initial discrep-
ancy and equivalent contact force at each contact surface, where
subscript i denotes the number of each contact surface; i.e., 1
for the bearing surface of the bolt head and 2 for the gasket
bearing surface. 1 and R 1 are given in the following form:
11
R 11
12 R 12
1 13 , R 1 R 13
] ]
1n R 1n
where 1 j and R 1 j are the initial discrepancy and equivalent con-
tact force for jth bolt. Initial discrepancy represents a gap size or
depth of penetration at the mating surfaces. Their negative values
are used to generate bolt tension here.
Since the components of K e , K f , K g and other matrices
located in the lower triangle in Eq. 1, such as K C1e , K C2 f ,
etc., are kept constant during iterative calculations, these matrices
need to be decomposed only once for the determination of contact
conditions. When tightening all the bolts, one by one, only the
amount of 1 varies in the corresponding numerical calculations,
and then the iterative calculations are to be done only for the
relevant matrices and vectors. Thus, the total numerical calcula-
tions can be conducted with high computation efficiency.
3.3 Numerical Model. The numerical model selected here
is an integral pipe flange with hub specified in JIS B 2238 with
nominal pressure of 40 K 4 MPa and the nominal diameter is 50
mm 11. Figure 1 shows an example of a finite element mesh, the
upper half of pipe flange connection being modeled because of
geometric symmetry. The analytical object is a large raised face
flange, which is clamped with eight bolts, unless otherwise stated.
It has been confirmed that the finite element mesh shown in Fig. 1
has sufficient accuracy to estimate the amount of bolt stress, by
executing numerical analyses with finer meshes. Youngs modu-
Journal of Pressure Vessel Technology
Qe
Qf
Qg (1)
1 Fig. 1 Finite element model
2
lus of the bolt, nut, and flange are 200 GPa, and that of the gasket
is supposed to be 70 GPa. Poissons ratio is assumed to be 0.3 for
all the components composing the pipe flange connection. Coef-
ficients of friction on each contact surface are taken as 0.2. Axial
displacements on the symmetrical planes of gasket and bolts are
3.4 Numerical Procedure. Bolt stresses are produced by
applying appropriate amounts of initial discrepancy to 1 j in Eq.
3. A summation of normal components of R 1 j is calculated for
each bolt to estimate the bolt stress. Figure 2 illustrates the bolt
number identified by the tightening sequence, where bolts are
tightened in accordance with a typical star pattern.
In the following, it is shown how the amounts of initial discrep-
ancy are determined to generate the desired bolt stress, corre-
sponding to Problems 1 and 2. For simplicity, a flange connection
tightened with three bolts is used to explain the procedure.
Problem 1: Estimation of Scatter in Bolt Preloads. Figure 3
schematically shows the analytical procedure of Problem 1. In
each step, the objective bolt is tightened with the same magnitude
of preload F, though the required initial discrepancy d j is different
for each bolt.
Tightening Bolt 1. First, an arbitrary amount of initial discrep-
(3) ancy is applied only to bolt 1, then its magnitude is modified until
the prescribed value of bolt preload F is obtained. d 1 is the initial
discrepancy thus obtained. In the process of determining d 1 , the
amounts of initial discrepancy for bolt 2 and bolt 3 are set to be
zero. F 11 , F 12 , and F 13 represent the resulting bolt preloads for
bolt 1, bolt 2, and bolt 3 in this step.
Tightening Bolt 2. The same procedure is repeated for bolt 2 to
determine d 2 , while d 1 for bolt 1 is kept constant and the initial
discrepancy for bolt 3 is still zero.
Tightening Bolt 3. Finally, d 3 is calculated in the same manner.
At this point, the scatter in bolt preloads in the final state is com-
pletely determined. F 31 , F 32 , and F 33 represent the resulting bolt
preloads thus obtained.
The computer program developed here is designed to conduct
the foregoing calculations automatically without any help of the
analyst.
Fig. 2 Bolt number corresponding to the bolt-up sequence
AUGUST 2001, Vol. 123 283

Fig. 3 Numerical procedure for Problem 1
Problem 2: Aiming at Uniform Bolt Preloads. Figure 4 illus-
trates the numerical procedure for Problem 2. Unlike Problem 1,
the amounts of initial discrepancy d j applied in each step are
identical, although the resulting bolt preloads are different.
Preliminary Calculation. An arbitrary amount of initial discrep-
ancy is equally and simultaneously applied to all bolts for creating
uniform bolt preloads. As in the case of Problem 1, iterative cal-
culations are executed to determine the initial discrepancy d
needed for the target preload F.
Tightening Bolt 1. First, the initial discrepancy d thus obtained
is applied only to bolt 1, while the amounts of initial discrepancy
Fig. 4 Numerical procedure for Problem 2
284 Vol. 123, AUGUST 2001
for bolt 2 and bolt 3 are set to be zero. The resulting value, F 11 ,
represents the initial preload to be applied to bolt 1 for achieving
the uniform bolt preloads in the final state.
Tightening Bolt 2. Next, the initial discrepancy d is applied to
both bolt 1 and bolt 2, while the initial discrepancy for bolt 3 is
held zero. The resulting value, F 22 , obtained in this step is the
initial preload to be applied to bolt 2.
Tightening Bolt 3. Finally, the initial discrepancy d is equally
applied to all bolts. This process can be omitted because it is
exactly the same as the preliminary calculation. It is therefore
evident that unlike Problem 1, the amount of initial preload nec-
essary for each bolt is successively determined in each step.
It should be noted that Problem 2 can be analyzed with higher
computation efficiency compared with Problem 1, because the
amount of initial discrepancy d necessary in each step is deter-
mined in the preliminary calculation. For a flange connection
clamped with eight bolts, Tables 1 and 2 represent how the initial
discrepancy should be applied to each bolt in each step, corre-
sponding to Problems 1 and 2, respectively.
4 Experimental Procedures
To confirm the validity of the numerical analyses proposed
here, variations of bolt stress during the bolt-up process are mea-
sured. The objective pipe flange is the same as that for the nu-
merical analyses. Eight bolts with metric coarse thread of M16 are
employed. The tightening sequence is shown in Fig. 2. Experi-
ments are conducted at room temperature. Two spanners are used
in the actual operation: one is for applying the torque to the nut,
and the other is to restrain the bolt head rotation. In order to avoid
a large amount of open-up deformation at the flange interface,
which leads to a significant scatter in bolt preloads, all the bolts
are tightened a priori to a certain amount of bolt stress, say 5 MPa.
The increase from this initial value is regarded as the bolt stress.
Two sheets of strain gage are mounted to measure the bolt stress,
each placed 180 deg apart.
5 Numerical Results
5.1 Estimation of Scatter in Bolt Preloads Problem 1.
Table 3 shows how the bolt stress of bolt j varies in the process of
Table 1 Initial discrepancy for constant initial bolt stress
Problem 1
Table 2 Initial discrepancy for uniform final bolt stress Prob-
lem 2
Transactions of the ASME
Table 3 Variations of bolt stresses in the bolt-up process
Problem 1
successive bolt tightening, which corresponds to the tightening
sequence shown in Table 1. The figures in Table 3 are normalized
values divided by the initial bolt stress i . i is set to be 50 MPa
here. The diagonal components are found to be unity as a neces-
sary consequence. It is worth noting that the components in the
upper triangle in Table 3 are not perfectly null, although the cor-
responding initial discrepancies are set to be zero. That is caused
by open-up deformation described in Section 4. The values in the
8th row are particularly important, as they represent the magni-
tudes of final bolt stress f which remain in each bolt at the end of
the tightening operation.
The scatter in final bolt preloads so obtained is shown in Fig. 5,
together with experimental results. The ordinate indicates the ratio
of f to i and the abscissa shows the bolt number defined in Fig.
2. More than 10 percent of the preload reductions are observed
from bolt 1 to bolt 4. It is presumed that such preload reductions
are caused by elastic interaction, because these four bolts are
tightened in advance of the neighboring two bolts, unlike the other
four bolts. Numerical results are in a fairly good agreement with
the experimental ones. Incidentally, it is confirmed that the mag-
nitudes of the friction coefficient have negligible effects for all the
numerical calculations in this study.
Figure 6 shows how the preload of bolt 1, which is tightened
first, varies with the progress of the tightening operation. The
numerical results correspond to the first column in Table 3. The
abscissa indicates the bolt-up sequence. It is shown that the pre-
load of bolt 1 is remarkably reduced due to elastic interaction
when tightening the neighboring bolts, i.e., bolt 5 and bolt 8. On
the other hand, a slight increase is observed in case of tightening
the other bolts. It is considered that the latter phenomenon is
caused by open-up deformation on the flange interface, occurring
when tightening the bolts apart from bolt 1. The slight difference
between analysis and experiment may partly be attributed to such
factors as manufacturing error of flange and gasket, surface rough-
ness, and/or the misalignment of the bolt-nut connection.
5.2 Aiming at Uniform Bolt Preloads Problem 2. The
amount of initial bolt stress i required for creating uniform final
Fig. 5 Scatter in bolt stresses at the completion of bolt-up
Problem 1
Journal of Pressure Vessel Technology
Fig. 6 Variations of bolt stress of bolt 1 Problem 1
preloads, when tightening each bolt one by one, is calculated by
FEM. In the foregoing sections, the tightening process has been
completed with a one-pass operation. In actual practice, however,
bolts are usually tightened with several passes to suppress nonaxi-
symmetric deformations of the flange connection as little as pos-
sible. The target bolt stress t is selected such as 50, 100, and 150
MPa. Hence, tightening operations are completed up to three
steps. In each case bolts are tightened with increment of 50 MPa.
Table 4 shows how the uniform bolt preloads in the final state are
produced in the process of successive bolt tightening. The target
bolt stress t is 50 MPa here. The figures in Table 4 are normal-
ized values divided by t . It is found that the numerical results in
the 8th row, which correspond to the final state, have a perfect
unity. Eight components on the diagonal in Table 4 are particu-
larly important, which represent the magnitudes of initial bolt
stress i to be applied to each bolt. It is shown in Table 5 how
much initial bolt stress i is required for each bolt to attain the
target bolt stress of 50, 100, and 150 MPa.
From Table 5, initial stresses of the two bolts, located 180 deg
from each other, e.g., bolt 1 and bolt 2, are found to be almost
identical. It is also indicated that four bolts, such as bolt 1 to bolt
4, need to be tightened with higher value than the target stress t
because of the elastic interaction discussed before.
Figure 7 illustrates the experimental results of scatter in a final
bolt stress f , in which tightening operations are conducted using
the initial stresses i given in Table 5. Measured values are al-
most unity for every bolt. This substantiates the effectiveness of
the present numerical procedure. According to Fig. 7, the scatter
in final preloads decreases as the number of tightening passes is
increased. It is considered that the increasing stiffness of the
flange connection, due to the increasing number of tightening
Table 4 Variations of bolt stresses in the bolt-up process
Problem 2
Table 5 Initial bolt stresses aiming at uniform final preloads
Problem 2
AUGUST 2001, Vol. 123 285
Fig. 7 Experimental results of scatter in bolt stress using cal-
culated initial bolt stress Problem 2 Fig. 9 Scatter in bolt stresses at the completion of bolt-up
Problem 1

passes, may be the major contribution to low scatter. The scatter

7 Conclusions
presented here is approximately up to 3 percent, which could be a
rough guide of the maximum error expected in the present analy- A numerical method based on FEM is proposed for precisely
ses, when tightening relatively small pipe flanges with solid-metal evaluating the bolt-up process of a pipe flange connection. The
flat gaskets. On the other hand, the preload scatter shown in Fig. following results are obtained:
5, when tightening all bolts with the same initial stress, reaches as
1 The numerical approach predicts the scatter in bolt preloads
much as 15 percent. It is thus concluded that the numerical pro-
with a high degree of accuracy, when tightening a pipe flange
cedure proposed here is effective for achieving the uniform final
with a number of bolts in an arbitrary order.
preloads.
2 The numerical approach estimates how much initial bolt pre-
loads are needed for achieving uniform final preloads.
6 Discussions 3 It is elucidated how the elastic interaction between bolts af-
fects the variations of bolt preloads in the process of succes-
The numerical procedure for Problem 1 is applied to pipe sive bolt tightening.
flanges with different nominal diameters, which are specified in 4 The effectiveness of the numerical approach presented here
JIS B 2238 with nominal pressure of 40 K 4 MPa. Nominal is demonstrated by comparing numerical results with experi-
diameters of 15, 50, 150, and 300 mm are treated here. Each pipe mental ones.
flange is tightened with 4, 8, 12, and 16 bolts, respectively.
Bolt-up sequence for each pipe flange model is schematically
shown in Fig. 8. Initial bolt stress i is set to be 50 MPa. Figure Acknowledgment
9 depicts the numerical results of final preload scatter in the same The authors wish to express sincere gratitude to Prof. Bibel,
way as in Fig. 5. Up to 30 percent of preload reduction is ob- University of North Dakota, for his invaluable suggestions on the
served for pipe flanges with large nominal diameter. It is also scatter estimate and the optimal tightening procedures of pipe
recognized that four bolts located 90 deg from each other behave flange connections.
alike, except for the nominal diameter of 15 mm.
It is evident from the foregoing results that the numerical pro-
cedures proposed in this study can easily be applied to pipe flange Nomenclature
connections in tightening with an arbitrary number of bolts. Fur- d initial discrepancy to create uni-
thermore, as far as metal gaskets with linear elasticity are con- form final preloads in each bolt
cerned, the numerical approaches suggested for Problems 1 and 2 d j initial discrepancy for tightening
are expected to offer optimal tightening procedures for bolted jth bolt to same bolt stress in
joints with various geometry and tightened by a number of bolts. each step
F desired bolt preload
F k j bolt preload for jth bolt in kth
step
j bolt no.
k bolt-up sequence
K e stiffness matrix for equivalent
model of bolt and nut
K f stiffness matrix for pipe flange
K g stiffness matrix for gasket
K C1e , K eC1 , K C1 , etc. matrices relevant to contact con-
ditions
K e j stiffness matrix for jth equiva-
lent bolt-nut model
n no. of clamping bolts
Q nodal force
R i equivalent contact force
R 1 j equivalent contact force for jth
bolt
Fig. 8 Bolt number corresponding to the bolt-up sequence u nodal displacement

286 Vol. 123, AUGUST 2001 Transactions of the ASME

 i initial discrepancy at each con-
tact surface
1j initial discrepancy for jth bolt
f bolt stress in final state
i initial bolt stress
t target bolt stress
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Journal of Pressure Vessel Technology AUGUST 2001, Vol. 123 287

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