International Journal of Fatigue 168 (2023) 107392

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International Journal of Fatigue

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijfatigue

Corrosion effects on the fatigue performance of high-strength bolted

friction connections
Chao Jiang a, Wen Xiong a, *, C.S. Cai a, b, Xiaoyi Zhou a, Yanjie Zhu a
a
Department of Bridge Engineering, School of Transportation, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, China
b
Formly, Professor, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: In this paper, the corrosion effects on the fatigue performance of the friction connections are experimentally and
Friction connection numerically investigated. Fatigue test was conducted on the connections with four corrosion levels, and the
Corrosion failure mode and fracture surfaces were analyzed. Based on the finite element modeling of the connection, the
Fatigue performance
crack initiation life caused by the fretting fatigue was calculated based on several multiaxial fatigue criteria, and
Fretting fatigue
High-strength bolt
the crack propagation life in the complex stress field was predicted using the AFGROW software. The results
show that the fatigue life of the friction connections could be significantly reduced by corrosion, and the fatigue
failure occurred near the minimum cross-section plane of the inner plates. It was also observed that the fatigue
cracks initiated at the fretting wear scar and the corrosion pits at the hole edge for the uncorroded and corroded
connections, respectively. The predictions show that the fatigue life prediction method in which the crack
initiation and propagation lives are both considered can accurately predict the fatigue behavior of the uncor­
roded connections under different stress ranges. The fatigue life of the corroded friction connections with a mass
loss ratio>7.8% can be estimated by assuming an initial crack at the hole edge in the minimum cross-section
plane and ignoring the crack initiation life induced by fretting damage.

1. Introduction
A friction-type connection is commonly composed of high-strength
bolts and connecting plates. By tightening the bolts, large preloading
force is introduced between the plates and external shear load can be
transferred by the friction force on all the faying surfaces. Slippage of the
connection will not occur until external load exceeds the frictional
resistance (Fslip) which is calculated as [1,2]:
Fslip = μ⋅n⋅k⋅P
where µ is the slip factor; n is the product of the number of interfaces
and bolts; k is the reduction factor considering the hole size and struc­
tural safety; and P is the bolt preloading force. Therefore, friction con­
nections are commonly used in civil and marine structures such as steel
bridges and ship buildings where slippage-induced stress is detrimental
to structural serviceability. When these connections are subjected to
cyclic loads caused by vehicle, wind, cargo, or wave, high fatigue per­
formance is achieved if no slip occurs. However, most of the friction
connections are used in marine and urban environments. The protective
coating on the plates and bolts will peel off in humid air or water, and
connections may be heavily corroded. In order to ensure the safety of the
connection and the whole structure, corrosion effects on the fatigue
performance of the friction connections should be investigated.
As the plates in the connections are quite different from perforated
plates due to the high preloading force of the bolts, various studies have
been carried out on the fatigue behavior of the friction connections.
Experimental and numerical results show that fatigue performance of
the connections could be influenced by multiple factors such as bolt
preloading force, hole size, and bolt arrangement [3,4]. Chakherlou and
(1)
Vogwell [4–6] found that the fatigue life of bolted connections increased
with the increase of the preloading force because the compressive stress
reduced the longitudinal tensile stress around the hole edge, and the
fatigue strength was also affected by the residual stress near the hole due
to different perforating methods (drill, punch, cold expansion, etc.).
Based on the analysis of stress distribution around the bolt hole, the
same conclusions were obtained by Aragon et al. [7,8] and fatigue life of
the connection plates was predicted by assuming an initial crack at the
hole edge. Guo et al. [9] studied the fatigue performance of bolted
connections with high-strength steel plates and found the fatigue
strength of the steel friction connection increased with the increase of

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: wxiong12@hotmail.com, wxiong@seu.edu.cn (W. Xiong).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijfatigue.2022.107392
Received 28 June 2022; Received in revised form 26 August 2022; Accepted 11 November 2022
Available online 17 November 2022
0142-1123/© 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
C. Jiang et al.
the steel grade. Moreover, it was also found in many experiments
[10–15] that for single lap connections, the fatigue cracks on the plates
initiated in front of the bolt hole near the loading side instead of the edge
of the minimum cross-section of the connection plates. In fact, the stress
state around the hole was greatly affected by the shear force and high
preloading force [16], and small relative movements on the contact
surfaces caused fretting fatigue cracking of the connection[12]. To ac­
count for the crack initiation zone, parameters such as Smith-Watson-
Topper [17,18], Fatemi-Socie [19], and Ruiz [20] were applied in the
multi-axial fatigue loading conditions based on the stress-strains on the
interfaces, and the fatigue crack initiation life was then predicted under
complicated stress field [15].
However, research on the fatigue performance of corroded friction
connections is limited. According to the tests by Wang et al. [21] and
Jiang et al. [22], the preloading force and slip factor of the contact
surfaces both changed with the corrosion degree, which may lead to the
reduction of the fatigue resistance of the friction connections as dis­
cussed above. Based on the pre-corroded aluminum alloy lap connec­
tions with a low preloading force, Chen et al. [23] found that the plate
thickness reduced by the uniform corrosion and the corrosion pits at the
hole edge caused by the pitting corrosion significantly decreased the
fatigue resistance of the connections. Bellinger et al. [24] used the crack
length measured at the nucleation sites to predict calculate the fatigue
life of the corroded lap connections and the result was close to the
experimental one. The reduction in grain size of steel plates under
combined actions of corrosion and fatigue was also found by Li et al.
[25] in the corrosion fatigue tests of the friction connections. These
corrosion-related studies mainly focused on the connections used in
aircrafts, while the connections used in the steel structures are quite
different considering the material properties, preloading forces, and size
dimensions. Therefore, further study is needed for the corrosion effects
on the degradation of the fatigue performance of bolted friction
connections.
This paper intends to investigate the fatigue performance of corroded
friction connections which are observed on steel bridges and ship
structures. Based on the torque method and ultrasonic measurement
technique, double lap friction connections were assembled with accu­
rate bolt preloading forces. The electrochemical corrosion test was
carried out to obtain the specimens with four corrosion levels. After
measuring the bolt preload change, fatigue test was conducted on all the
connections. The degradation of the fatigue performance of the con­
nections was discussed, and the failure mode and fracture surfaces were
analyzed. A finite element (FE) model was also established and the
contact status between the inner and cover plates was discussed under
different stress ranges. The crack initiation life caused by the fretting
fatigue around the bolt hole was then calculated based on multiaxial
fatigue criteria, and the crack propagation life of the connection was
predicted using the AFGROW software [26]. The predictions were
compared with the test results and the corrosion effects on the fatigue
life of the connections were investigated.
2. Experiments
2.1. Specimen preparation
The double lap friction connection included four plates of 8 mm
thickness and four M20 bolts with 10.9 grade. Q345qD steel was
employed for the plates as this steel grade is commonly used in bridge
and building structures. The high-strength bolt was made of 20MnTiB
alloy steel. The chemical composition is listed in Table 1. As shown in
Fig. 1, there was a 10 mm gap between the inner plates and the enlarged
ends with bolt holes were designed for the jaws on the loading machine.
The bolts were arranged in the longitudinal direction and all the design
parameters, including the end distance, edge distance, and bolt spacing
in different directions, met the requirements in Chinese standard
GB50017-2017 [27]. Each bolt component includes one bolt shank with
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International Journal of Fatigue 168 (2023) 107392
Table 1
Chemical composition of Q345 steel and high-strength bolt (wt%).
Q345 steel C Si Mn P S Cr Cu
0.16 0.11 1.04 0.018 0.008 0.03 0.08
Bolt C Si Mn P S Ti B
0.22 0.19 1.43 0.013 0.011 0.060 0.002
bolt head, one nut, and two washers. The mechanical properties of these
two materials were obtained from the tensile tests on the standard
specimens and are listed in Table 2.
All the surfaces of the steel plates were cleaned by hand wire
brushing before installation. According to AASHTO standard [28], the
surfaces were considered as unpainted clean mill scale with the slip
factor ranging from 0.20 to 0.35. The bolt holes were firstly drilled with
laser cutting and then enlarged by a drilling machine to reduce the re­
sidual stresses around the holes.
During the assembly of the friction connections, torque method was
employed to tighten the bolts and the torque wrench features a torque
accuracy of ± 2 %. Following the stipulations in JGJ 82–2011 [29], the
bolts were installed in two steps including an initial torque step and a
final torque step. In the initial torque step, about 50 % of the final torque
was applied to four bolts to achieve a good fit between the surfaces of the
connected plates. In the final torque step, the final torque was applied
and the real-time bolt preload was measured using the ultrasonic tech­
nique. The bolt tightening sequence in each step is from bolt 1 to 4 to
make the preloading forces of multiple bolts uniformly distributed.
As shown in Fig. 2, a piezoelectric ceramic transducer was glued on
the bolt head. The ultrasonic measurement method calculates the pre­
loading force based on the time of flight of the pulse-echo after the
electrical pulse was applied on the transducer. Detailed description of
the preloading force measurement and verification of the ultrasonic
method can be found in Ref [22] by the authors. In this way, a specified
preload of M20 bolts which is 155 kN was applied to each bolt in the
final torque step and a total of 20 friction connections were prepared in
this study. The average measured preload was 151 kN with the standard
deviation of 4.6 kN.
2.2. Accelerated corrosion test
The electrochemical corrosion test was conducted to obtain different
corrosion degrees of the connections. Fig. 3(a) shows that the enlarged
ends of the specimens were protected by alkyd paints and the transition
area was wrapped with waterproof tape. Thus, the uncorroded ends
could be fixed by the jaws in the fatigue machine. The actual corroded
connection was 390 mm in length. The specimens were immersed in a 5
% NaCl solution and were parallelly connected to the anode of a DC
power supply, as shown in Fig. 3(b). The cathode electrode was con­
nected to the copper plates and one specimen corresponded to one
copper plate to achieve a uniform corrosion rate. It can also be seen that
a total of 8 specimens (3 for tensile test and 5 for fatigue test) was
prepared for each corrosion degree and a stable direct current of 1.2A
was provided for each specimen. The current density, which was
calculated by the total surface area in the corroded area, was about 700
µA/cm2. In this way, specimens with four corrosion degrees (Uncor­
roded, Corrosion level A, B, and C) were obtained and each corrosion
degree included five replicated specimens (Specimen 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5)
for fatigue-related investigation. For the corroded specimens, the
corrosion time was 7, 14, and 21d, respectively. The typical surface view
of the corroded connections is shown in Fig. 3(c).
After the corrosion test, the bolt preloading force was measured on
all the corroded specimens and fatigue test was then performed. It is
noted that the chemical cleaning process which is required to remove
the corrosion products may do damage to the fatigue fracture surface
and the fractography analysis may be affected. Therefore, the mass loss
C. Jiang et al. International Journal of Fatigue 168 (2023) 107392

Fig. 1. Dimensions of the specimen (unit: mm).

set to be the minimum stress range to reduce the fatigue loading cycles
Table 2
and lower the test cost. Therefore, the stress range, ΔS = Smax- Smin, was
Mechanical properties of plate and bolt.
varied from 144 to 230 MPa, and the stress ratio, R = Smin/Smax, was set
Component E- elastic modulus σy-yield stress σu-ultimate stress as 0.1.
(GPa) (MPa) (MPa)
The fatigue test was conducted on a servo-hydraulic fatigue testing
Steel plate 207 372 513 machine and the enlarged ends of the specimen were fixed by the ma­
Bolt 200 1025 1145
chine jaws, as shown in Fig. 4. The constant amplitude sinusoidal
loading was applied and the frequency was 10 Hz. It is noted that the slip
of the specimens on each corrosion level was obtained indirectly from load of the connection decreased after corrosion due to the change of the
three friction connections used in the tensile test, as shown in Fig. 3(b). preload and slip factor. Therefore, the applied maximum load of the
They were disassembled after the tensile test and the corrosion products corroded specimens did not exceed the frictional resistance to prevent
were removed by light brushing and chemical cleaning following the the slippage during fatigue loading, and the maximum stress of speci­
ASTM standard G1 [30]. The enlarged ends were cut off from the inner mens on corrosion level C decreased to 211 MPa. The fatigue loading
plates and the actual mass loss was recorded after weighing each was also ended after 2 million cycles. The detailed classification and
component of the connections. The average mass loss ratio of the plates loading parameters of all the specimens is shown in Table 4 together
and bolts in the connections is shown in Table 3. The average mass loss with the fatigue test results. The microstructural analysis on the fatigue
ratio of the specimens on corrosion level A, B, and C is 4.09 %, 7.83 %, fracture surfaces was conducted by a Nova Nano Scanning Electron
and 10.09 %, respectively. Microscope (SEM).

3. Experimental results and discussion

2.3. Fatigue test
Based on the Chinese standards GB50017-2017 [27] and JGJ
82–2011 [29], fatigue test was conducted on all the specimens in the
laboratory environment. The maximum applied load was 143.1 kN, and
the corresponding nominal stress of the inner plate was 255 MPa. The
maximum stress was less than 0.8 σy which meets the requirements in
the standard [27]. The fatigue strength of the friction connection at 2
million cycles is 110 MPa in many standards such as Eurocode 3,
AASHTO, and JGJ82-2011 [1,2,29], while the value is 130 MPa in BS
7608–2014 [9] and 144 MPa in GB50017-2017 [27]. As the fatigue
strength in the standards has a 97.7 % probability of survival, 144 MPa is
3.1. Fatigue test results
A total of 17 usable specimen data sets were obtained and the results
are listed in Table 3. Due to the failure of the protective waterproof tape,
there was some corrosion damage on the transition area of the specimen
B-1 and the fatigue failure occurred at the end of the inner plate.
Therefore, fatigue life of specimen B-1 for failure in the test section
is>612,500 cycles. The test data are plotted in the log scale to make a
comparison with the specified value in the standards, as shown in Fig. 5.
Although the specimens were limited and data are discrete in the figure,

Fig. 2. Connection installation.

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C. Jiang et al. International Journal of Fatigue 168 (2023) 107392

Fig. 3. Electrochemical accelerated corrosion test: (a) specimen preparation; (b) electrochemical accelerated corrosion test; (c) typical view of the
corroded specimens.

For the corroded specimens, the fatigue resistance decreases

Table 3
dramatically with the corrosion level. For example, under the stress
Mass loss ratio of the components of the specimens (average value ± standard
range of 170 MPa, the fatigue life drops from>2 million cycles to
deviation).
202,315 for corroded connections with 10 % mass loss. For the speci­
Corrosion Mass loss ratio (%) mens on corrosion level A, the test data are below the design curve in
level
Inner plate Cover plate Bolt Total GB50017-2017, while the fatigue performance still meets the re­
connection quirements in Eurocode 3 and AASHTO. For the specimens on corrosion
A 3.82 ± 0.67 4.14 ± 4.47 ± 0.25 4.09 ± 0.45 level B and C, all the test data are below the design curves in the stan­
0.47 dards. Generally, the relationship between the stress range and fatigue
B 8.54 ± 0.34 6.77 ± 8.70 ± 0.89 7.83 ± 0.35
life can be expressed by the S–N curve for the steel structures:
0.22
C 11.25 ± 8.15 ± 11.96 ± 10.09 ± 0.29 logN + mlogS = logA (2)
0.17 0.45 0.30
where m and logA are material constants related to fatigue proper­
ties. For the bolted steel connections, m is usually taken as 3 in the
a clear trend could be observed that the fatigue life of the friction con­ standards. The corrosion effects on the value of m is not considered here
nections decreases with the increase of the corrosion degree. and it is assumed to be 3 for all the specimens. The S–N curves of the
For the uncorroded specimens, all the data are above the design corroded specimens can be obtained from the regression analysis:
curves in the standards. The fatigue life was>2 million cycles under the
stress ranges of 170 and 190 MPa, showing a good fatigue resistance for A: logN + 3logS = 12.753 R2 = 0.889
the bolted connections. The fatigue strength at 2 million cycles is B: logN + 3logS = 12.330 R2 = 0.948 (3)
much>110 MPa, indicating that the fatigue assessment method in C: logN + 3logS = 11.928 R2 = 0.979
Eurocode 3 or AASHTO is relatively conservative for the double lap According to the fitted S–N curves, the fatigue strength of specimens
friction connections.

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C. Jiang et al. International Journal of Fatigue 168 (2023) 107392

Fig. 4. Fatigue test set-up.

Table 4
Fatigue loading parameters and results (R = 0.1).
Specimen Smax (MPa) ΔS (MPa) N (cycle) Specimen Smax (MPa) ΔS (MPa) N (cycle)

U-1 187 170 2,000,000 B-1 160 144 >612500

U-2 211 190 2,000,000 B-2 187 170 412,800
U-3 233 210 1,412,935 B-3 211 190 300,120
U-4 255 230 561,508 B-4 233 210 260,832
A-1 160 144 2,000,000 B-5 255 230 201,594
A-2 187 170 1,023,422 C-1 160 144 301,574
A-3 211 190 751,557 C-2 187 170 202,315
A-4 233 210 664,893 C-3 211 190 124,449
A-5 255 230 443,699

where U represents uncorroded specimens; and A, B, and C represent specimens with the defined corresponding corrosion level.

on corrosion level A, B, and C is about 140, 100, and 75 MPa, respec­
tively. Thus, under the 50 % probability of survival, the fatigue strength
of the corroded friction connections with a 4 %, 8 %, and 10 % mass loss
of is about 129 %, 93 %, and 68 % of the specified value in Eurocode 3
and AASHTO, respectively.
3.2. Failure mode and parameters of frictional resistance
Fig. 6 shows the failure mode of the friction connections with
different corrosion levels. All the specimens fractured near the minimum
cross-section of the inner plates and all the corresponding bolt holes are
at the loading side (bolt 3 or 4 shown in Fig. 2). It can be observed that
the fracture surface at one side of the hole is even without necking
phenomenon, which is a typical fracture feature for metal fatigue fail­
ure. The necking phenomenon is obvious for the fracture surface at the
other side, indicating that the tensile failure occurred after the fatigue
fracture. For the uncorroded specimens, the fretting wear around the
hole can be observed on the contact surfaces of the inner plates. For the
corroded specimens, it can be found that there were corrosion damage
on the contact surfaces of the connections although the preloading
forces remained, and the amount of the corrosion products decreased
from the plate edge to the hole edge. It shows that the inner and cover
plates cannot be perfectly clamped by the high-strength bolts and the
corrosive solution will inevitably permeate through the connections.
Fig. 7 shows the fatigue fracture position of the specimen on corrosion
level B and the coupled damage of fretting wear and corrosion can be
observed at the hole edge near the loading side. The degradation of fa­
tigue performance of the friction connections may be caused by the
coupled damage at the hole edge, which will be verified by the frac­
tography analysis and finite element simulation later.
The average value and standard deviation of the preloading force
loss and slip factors of the contact surfaces are also listed in Table 5.
Based on Eq. (1) and three tensile specimens (shown in Fig. 3), slip
factors were calculated by the slip load in the tensile test. The detailed
process about the parameters can be found in Ref [22] and Ref [31] by
the authors, in which the corrosion effects on these two parameters were
thoroughly investigated. It can be found in Table 4 that only 58.8 %
preloading force remained for connections with a 10 % mass loss. The

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C. Jiang et al.
Fig. 5. Fatigue test results.
slip factor firstly increased due to the corrosion products between the
surfaces, and then gradually decreased with the increase of the corrosion
degree.
3.3. Fractography analysis
The morphology of the fatigue fracture surfaces was obtained by
SEM and the typical images are shown in Fig. 8. The horizontal direction
in the images is consistent with the depth direction of the bolt hole (i.e.,
the “a” direction), as shown in the legend in the left side. The fatigue
fracture surface can usually be divided into three zones, i.e., fatigue
crack initiation zone, fatigue crack growth zone, and instantaneous
fracture zone. Because the width/depth ratio of the fracture surface is
large and there is a minimum operating magnification for SEM, three
zones cannot be displayed simultaneously in the image. The crack
initiation zone was determined by checking all the edges around the
fracture surface of the specimens. It is found that all the fatigue cracks
initiated at the fretting wear or corrosion damage near or at the hole
edge. The crack initiation zone is marked by white dashed ellipses and
the fatigue crack propagation direction (white straight line) is also
shown in Fig. 8.
For the uncorroded specimens, a clear wear scar can be observed at
the hole edge where the fatigue crack initiates. The length of the scar on
the contact surfaces (“c” direction) is about 1.1 mm, >2 times that in the
depth direction (about 0.4 mm).
For the specimens with corrosion level A and B, there are small
corrosion pits or wear scar on the contact surface near the hole. How­
ever, the dominant fatigue crack still initiates at the hole edge according
to the crack propagation direction. From the SEM image of specimen B-
4, the damage caused by pitting corrosion can be observed in the crack
initiation zone. The contact surface at the edge of the corrosion pit is
slightly concave (marked by white centerline) which shows an obvious
characteristic of fretting wear. During the fatigue loading process, the
fretting wear between the plates may pressure and crush the corrosion
products on the surface, and the corrosion products may also increase
the slip factor of the surface and then influence the sliding distance of
the fretting wear. Based on Figs. 7 and 8, it can be inferred that coupled
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International Journal of Fatigue 168 (2023) 107392
damage of fretting and corrosion occurs at the crack initiation zone at
the hole edge. For the specimen on corrosion level C, the corrosion pit
which initiate the crack is obvious on the contact surface. The maximum
depth of the pit is near 0.5 mm and the fretting damage on the contact
surface is not significant.
The size of the dominant flaw (wear scar or corrosion pit) in the crack
initiation zone was measured along the “a” (da) and “c” (dc) directions.
The average value of each corrosion level was listed in Table 6. For some
corroded specimens (such as B-4 in Fig. 8), it is difficult to determine the
flaw edge due to the coupled damage of fretting and corrosion, and their
data were not considered in the measurement. It can be found that the
value of da slightly increases with the increase of the corrosion degree.
The value of dc decreases after corrosion as the fretting damage on the
contact surface reduces with lower load cycles.
By taking the specimen on corrosion level B as an example, Fig. 9
shows the morphology of the crack surface in different zones. The par­
allel fatigue striations are clearly observed in the crack growth zone and
the striation spacing is below 1 µm. The formation of the striations is
consistent with the crack propagation direction. Fig. 9 also shows the
dimples near the instantaneous fracture zone, which is the main feature
in the fast growth region. The pre-corrosion effect on the feature size of
the striations and dimples is not observed under different corrosion
degrees.
4. Finite element analysis
4.1. FE models
The fatigue life reduction of the corroded friction connections may
be caused by multiple factors such as the corrosion pits, preload loss and
change of the slip factor. To obtain a comprehensive evaluation of the
corrosion effects on the fatigue performance of the specimens, the FE
model of the connection was firstly established to analyze the contact
status between the inner and cover plates using ANSYS software [32].
Considering the symmetry in the longitudinal and transversal directions,
only a quarter of the connection was modeled to reduce the computa­
tional cost. The enlarged ends of the inner plates were also ignored as
C. Jiang et al. International Journal of Fatigue 168 (2023) 107392

Fig. 6. Failure mode.

Fig. 7. Fatigue fracture at the hole edge.

they were clamped by machine jaws in the fatigue test. The detailed
Table 5 three-dimensional FE model is shown in Fig. 10. The plates and bolts
Parameters of the frictional resistance (average value ± standard deviation).
were modeled by using the twenty-node Solid186 elements and the
Corrosion level Slip factor Preload loss ratio (%) mesh in the region around the critical bolt (near the loading end) was
U 0.255 ± 0.009 0 refined. The element size of the plates and bolt components was also
A 0.398 ± 0.005 13.5 ± 2.0 reduced with the distance from the bolt shank and the minimum mesh
B 0.368 ± 0.003 31.0 ± 9.1 size at the hole edge was 0.5 mm based on the mesh sensitivity study. It
C 0.344 ± 0.009 41.2 ± 13.1
is noted that there are steel rings at the bottom of the bolt head and nut.
The rings are in directly contact with the washers and therefore, the bolt

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C. Jiang et al. International Journal of Fatigue 168 (2023) 107392

Fig. 8. SEM images of the fatigue fracture surfaces.

Table 6 τ = λSp + Scohe (4)

Dominant flaw size in the crack initiation zone (average value).
where λ is the friction coefficient which equals to the slip factor; Sp is
Corrosion Specimen da dc Flaw diagram the contact pressure; and Scohe is the cohesion sliding resistance which is
level (mm) (mm)
taken as 0 MPa for steel.
U U-3,4 0.34 0.99 As shown in Fig. 10, the DOFs of the nodes in the planes X = 0 and Y
A A-2,3,4 0.45 0.72
= 0 were constrained considering the symmetry, and the origin point
B B-2,3 0.53 0.70
C C-1,2,3 0.55 0.67 was fixed. The tensile load was applied as a surface pressure at the end of
the inner plate, and the DOFs on the pressure surface in the y direction
were coupled to prevent the bending of the inner plate. The multilinear
isotropic hardening model was defined for the plates and bolts with their
mechanical properties provided in Table 1. The bolt preloading force
was applied using the PSMESH command, and a pretension section
which was normal to the preload direction was created in the center of
the bolt shank for each bolt.
The FE analysis was conducted in three time steps and the contact
constraints were solved by the Lagrange multipliers method. In the first
time step, only the preloading force of the bolts was applied through a
certain number of substeps. In the second and third time steps, the bolt
preload was locked, and the minimum and maximum stresses in the
fatigue loading process were applied on the inner plates, respectively.
The FE model with a coarse mesh density was verified first by the
load–displacement results in the tensile test, which can be found in Ref
Fig. 9. Morphology of fracture surface of specimen B-4. [31] by the authors. As no obvious area reduction was observed at the
minimum cross-section, the model dimensions were assumed to be the
same for all the specimens. The corrosion effects were considered by
head and nut are modeled using the simplified cylinder although they
changing the preloading force and slip factors in the original model, and
have hexagonal cross sections.
their values were consistent with the test results of the corroded speci­
The contact simulation in the model included the contact between
mens (listed in Table 5).
the washer and cover plate, the contact between the inner and cover
plates, and the contact between the bolt shank and hole wall. All the
contacts were modeled as a surface-to-surface contact, and Targe170 4.2. Contact analysis
and Conta174 elements were used. The interaction between the washer
and bolt head or nut was simplified by coupling the degrees-of-freedom For the uncorroded specimens, the contact parameters on the surface
(DOFs) of the nodes at the same location, which was proved to have little of the inner plate under different stress ranges are shown in Fig. 11. The
effects on the analysis before slippage [33]. The Coulomb friction model contact status shows that only a small part of the inner plate around the
was used in the contact simulation and the shear stress τ on the contact hole is bonded to the target surface on the cover plate. Most of the
surface is expressed as: contact surfaces, which are far away from the preloading areas

8
C. Jiang et al.
Fig. 10. FE model of the friction connection.
(corresponding to the external diameter of the washer), belong to non-
contact regions. When the inner and cover plates were tightly clamped
by bolts, the electrolyte in the corrosive solution can still penetrate into
the crevice on the interface of the connections [34], and the contact
status accounts for the non-uniform distribution of the corrosion damage
on the surfaces shown in Fig. 6. The bolt hole near the loading end is
defined as hole 1 and the other is hole 2. There are more sticking areas
around the hole 2, and the sliding areas around the hole 1 increases with
the increase of the maximum stress. Fig. 11(b) and (c) show that the
maximum contact pressure and frictional stress occur at the edge of the
hole 1 towards the loading direction. The contact pressure and frictional
stress also increase with the increase of the maximum loading stress.
Fig. 11(d) shows that the maximum sliding distance exists at the edge of
the preloading areas instead of the hole edge, and its location moves
towards the loading direction with the increase of the loading stress.
The contact parameters on the surface of the inner plate under the
stress range of 190 MPa are shown in Fig. 12 for the specimens with
different corrosion degrees. Fig. 15(a) and (c) show that the sticking area
and the frictional stress around the hole 1 firstly increase when the
specimen was corroded, and then decrease with the increase of the
corrosion degree, which have the same trend with the slip factors on the
surfaces. An opposite trend can be observed for the sliding distance, as
shown in Fig. 12(d). The maximum sliding distance around the washer
edge decreases from 0.034 mm to 0.023 mm after corrosion, and then
increases to 0.052 mm with the corrosion level C. Moreover, a decrease
of the contact pressure around the bolt hole can be seen in Fig. 12(b),
which is consistent with the preload loss of the corroded bolts. It can also
be found that for all the specimens, the contact parameters show an
increasing trend towards the loading direction around the hole 2 and an
opposite trend around the hole 1, as marked by the arrows and ellipses in
Fig. 12.
5. Fatigue life prediction
For the uncorroded connections, previous studies [4,8,9,16,35]
showed that the fatigue performance was significantly affected by the
manufacturing process of the bolt holes. When the holes were made by
cold expansion or punching technique, there were high residual stresses
and surface flaws like burrs along the hole wall, and fatigue cracks
usually initiated near the mid-plane of the hole wall [4,8,35], as shown
in Fig. 13(a). However, to reduce the residual stress around the holes,
the drilling method is required for the bolt holes in bridge structures
based on the specification JGJ 82–2011 [29], which is consistent with
the specimen preparation in this study (shown in Fig. 2). The flaw size
9
International Journal of Fatigue 168 (2023) 107392
around the hole wall is small and fatigue crack will initiate at the wear
scar when the scar grows to a certain size (such as 0.4 mm shown in
Fig. 8). Fig. 13(b) shows the crack initiation site of the uncorroded
specimens. By referencing to the fatigue life prediction of the connec­
tions used in aircrafts and the fracture surface analysis in section 3, it can
be assumed that the fatigue failure process of the uncorroded connection
includes two periods, as shown in Fig. 13(c). In the first period (fatigue
crack initiation), the fretting damage accumulates on the contact surface
and wear scars gradually form under the fatigue loading. With the in­
crease of the wear volume loss at the hole edge, the fretting effect on the
scar is not significant and the stress intensity factor of the scar is larger
than the threshold. The second period (fatigue crack propagation) then
occurs and the fatigue crack propagates until failure under combined
loadings of external tension and bolt preload. Therefore, the total fatigue
life of the uncorroded connections can be predicted by adding the life in
two periods.
For the corroded connections, numerous studies [23,24,36,37]
showed that the crack initiation life will be greatly reduced by corrosion
damage. Fatigue cracks may form at the corrosion pits [36,37], which
can be verified by the SEM image of specimen C-2 shown in Fig. 8.
However, both the fretting and corrosion damage can be observed in the
crack initiation zone for specimens on corrosion level A and B, indicating
that the fretting wear should still be considered after corrosion.
Therefore, the fatigue life prediction method of the friction connec­
tion, as well as the corrosion effects on the fatigue life reduction, will be
investigated in this section based on the refined FE model.
5.1. Crack initiation life
The contact surface on the inner plate around the bolt hole is in the
multiaxial stress state because of the fatigue load, bolt preload, and the
friction contact. Therefore, multiaxial fatigue criteria were used to
predict the initiation life and location of the fretting fatigue crack. A
total of 4 multi-axial approaches were used in this study and they were
introduced as follows.
(1) Smith-Watson-Topper (SWT)
This parameter proposed by Smith et. al [17] is firstly used in uni­
axial tensile loading. Several researchers such as Socie [18], Szolwinski
and Farris [38] successfully applied this parameter to multiaxial fatigue
loading conditions and now it is one of the most popular parameter used
in multiaxial criterion. The SWT parameter is defined as:
C. Jiang et al. International Journal of Fatigue 168 (2023) 107392

Fig. 11. Contact analysis of the uncorroded specimens: (a) contact status; (b) contact pressure (unit: MPa); (c) frictional stress (unit: MPa); (d) sliding distance
(unit: µm).

( )
SWT = σ max
n εa (5) The critical plane in this criterion was defined as the plane with the
max
maximum shear strain amplitude under the fatigue loading [19]. The FS
where σ max
n and εa are the maximum normal stress and the strain parameter is expressed as:
amplitude in the same plane, respectively. The fretting cracks nucleate [ ]
at the critical plane where the maximum value of the SWT parameter is FS =
Δγmax σ max
1 + kf n (7)
obtained. By relating the parameter to the Manson-Coffin equation, the 2 σy
initiation life NCI can be estimated by: where Δγmax is the maximum shear strain range; and kf is a material
′ 2 constant obtained from curve-fitting the uniaxial torsion test data and
(σ f ) ′ ′ ′
(6) usually varies from 0.2 to 0.8 for steel [9]. Combining the parameter
′ ′
SWT = (2NCI )2b + σ f εf (2NCI )b +c
E
with the low cycle fatigue strain-life relation, the initiation life NCI can
where σ f and b’ are the fatigue strength coefficient and exponent, also be calculated by:
′

respectively; εf and c’ are the fatigue ductility coefficient and exponent,

′
1 + νe ′ ′ k 1 + νe ′ 2 ′ ′

respectively. FS = σ f (2NCI )b + f σ (2NCI )2b + (1 + νp )ε′f (2NCI )c

E 2 Eσyield f
(8)
kf 1 + νp ′ ′ ′ ′

(2) Fatemi-Socie (FS) + σ f εf (2NCI )b +c

2 σ yield

10
C. Jiang et al. International Journal of Fatigue 168 (2023) 107392

Fig. 12. Contact analysis of the corroded specimens (ΔS = 190 MPa): (a) contact status; (b) contact pressure (unit: MPa); (c) frictional stress (unit: MPa); (d) sliding
distance (unit: µm).

where νe and νp are the elastic and plastic Poisson’s ratios. When the nucleated at the critical plane with the maximum shear strain amplitude
critical plane is found on the surface, the crack initiates at where the FS and the normal strain promoted the nucleation. The LE parameter is
parameter is maximal. calculated by:
′
σf
(3) Lohr-Ellison (LE) Δγmax ′ ′
(9)
′
LE = + kb Δεn = C1 (2NCI )b + C2 εf (2NCI )c
2 E
The LE parameter is modified on the Brown and Miller’s parameter where kb is a material constant which equals to 0.4; Δεn is the normal
[39] by Lohr and Ellison [40]. They also suggested that the crack

11
C. Jiang et al. International Journal of Fatigue 168 (2023) 107392

Fig. 13. Analysis of the fatigue crack: (a) initiate at the mid-plane of the hole wall; (b) initiate at the hole edge; (c) two periods.

strain on the critical plane; C1 and C2 depend on the material properties,

and C1 = 1.65 and C2 = 1.75 are considered for the LE parameter.

(4) Ruiz

Ruiz et al. [20] proposed a fretting damage parameter based on the

frictional status on the contact surfaces. The parameter κ is defined as:
κ = σ11 τf δ (10)

where σ 11 is the tangential stress; τf is the frictional shear stress; and δ

is the sliding distance. This parameter is irrelevant to the crack initiation
life and can only be applied to the fretting fatigue failure. Cracks will
initiate at the contact surface where the κ reaches the maximum value.
For the first three criteria, the critical plane differs for each point on
the contact surfaces and all the planes passing through the point should
be considered in the analysis. Based on the FE model, the SWT, FS, and
LE parameters are obtained by post-processing the results in ANSYS and
MATLAB [41]. The process is shown in Fig. 14 and the increment of the
plane angles is taken as 3◦ to check all the planes at each node. For the
last criteria, κ can be obtained based on the contact parameters and
stress-strains on the contact surface. The material constants of Q345qD
steel used in the multiaxial approaches are listed in Table 2 and Table 7.
It is found that the value of kf, which will influence the initiation life, had
little impact on the prediction of crack location [12]. Therefore, kf = 0.8
was used to estimate the crack nucleation location and kf = 0.2 and 0.8
was used for initiation life prediction due to the lack of uniaxial torsion
test data.

5.2. Crack propagation life

The crack propagation analysis of the inner plate on the friction

connections was performed by using the AFGROW software based on the
fracture mechanics. To account for the complex stress field around the
bolt hole, the beta correction method was employed in the AFGROW
code. The actual stress intensity factor (SIF) of the crack, Kac, is calcu­ Fig. 14. Calculation process of the SWT, FS, and LE parameters.
lated by:
Kac = Km β (11)
where Km is the SIF in the standard model; β is the beta correction Table 7
factor which is affected by the crack length, crack direction, and stress Material constants of Q345qD steel [12,42,43].
field. The beta correction factor can be automatically calculated in the Material σf (MPa)
′
εf (MPa)
′
b’ c’ kf νe νp
AFGROW when the stress field of interest is provided. Thus, the FE constant
model was refined near the crack origin and the stress concentration 945 0.450 − 0.1034 − 0.529 0.2, 0.3 0.5
factors at the crack initiation site are shown in Fig. 15 under different 0.8
loads. The decrease of the stress around the hole due to the bolt preload
can be clearly observed. The stress concentration factor of the perforated

12
C. Jiang et al.
plate along the depth direction is almost three times that of the inner
plate of the connection. The tensile stress on the inner plate in the c
direction is even below the applied stress under certain load. The ratio of
the stress concentration factor of the inner plate to the perforated plate is
then normalized and inputted in the software, and Gaussian integration
method is used to obtain the beta correction factor on the crack plane.
The crack propagation life of the inner plate was predicted following
the process shown in Fig. 16. The mesh density at the crack origin was
refined to 0.1 mm to calculate the beta correction factors. The initial
crack was assumed to be elliptical, and the one-side quarter elliptical
model was employed in the prediction which was consistent with the
failure mode and SEM images in the fatigue test. Considering the low
crack growth rate near the threshold of SIF, the simplified bilinear Paris
equation was employed in the prediction. It is noted that although the
electrolyte may remain in the crevices on the interfaces, the effect of the
electrolyte on the crack growth behavior was not considered as the fa­
tigue tests were conducted three months after the corrosion test. Based
on the crack growth data of Q345 steel under the stress ratio of 0.1
[44,45], the crack growth model used in this study is expressed as:
da √̅̅̅̅
= 3.100 × 10− 20 ⋅ΔK 13.06 ΔK < 6.85MPa m
dN
(12)
da √̅̅̅̅
= 1.023 × 10− 11 ⋅ΔK 2.87 ΔK⩾6.85MPa m
dN
where the unit of crack growth rate da/dN is meter and ΔK is the SIF
√̅̅̅̅
range. The threshold of SIF was taken as 5 MPa m . Fatigue failure
occurs in the prediction process when the maximum SIF reaches the
√̅̅̅̅
fracture toughness which was taken as 59.5 MPa m.
The fatigue crack propagation life is then calculated given the initial
crack size. According to the SEM images of the crack initiation zones in
Fig. 8, the initial fatigue crack was assumed to initiate at the dominant
flaw at the hole edge. The flaw was caused by the fretting damage for the
uncorroded specimens or the coupled damage of fretting and corrosion
for the corroded specimens. Therefore, the dimensions of the initial
crack, ac and cc (shown in Fig. 16) were taken as the value of da and dc, as
listed in Table 6.
5.3. Results and discussion
5.3.1. Uncorroded friction connection
The prediction of the fretting crack initiation site using different
approaches is shown in Fig. 17. The maximum value on the surface
around the hole 1 represents the crack initiation site. When the
Fig. 15. Stress concentration factors at the minimum cross-section: (a) a direction; (b) c direction.
13
International Journal of Fatigue 168 (2023) 107392
maximum loading stress is 160 MPa, the predicted site is almost the
same for all the criterion. The crack may initiate on the hole edge of the
minimum cross-section and the surface on the top right side of the hole.
When the maximum stress increases, the crack site is at the hole edge of
the minimum cross-section for the SWT, FS, and LE parameters. For the
Ruiz criteria, the fretting crack may nucleate at the hole edge near the
minimum cross-section towards the loading direction. The predicted
crack initiation region is consistent with the test results shown in Fig. 6.
The crack initiation life was then calculated by the maximum value
on the surface under different criterion, as shown in Table 8. All the
predicted crack initiation lives under the stress ranges of 170 and 190
MPa are>2 million cycles, which well explains the high fatigue resis­
tance of the friction connections under certain fatigue load. For the
stress ranges of 210 and 230 MPa, the fatigue lives in the test are larger
than the predictions for all the criterion.
The predictions of the total fatigue life of the uncorroded specimens
are shown in Fig. 18. As the fatigue test was carried out on four speci­
mens and fatigue failure did not occur for two of them, the results of only
two specimens are compared in the figure. It shows that all the pre­
dictions are within the error band of two times. The total fatigue life
calculated by the FS (kf = 0.8) parameter agrees well with the test results
and the maximum error is within 10 %. Although the test data are
limited for the uncorroded connections, the fatigue life prediction
method in this study can still be verified to a certain extent according to
the comparison of predicted and experimental fatigue lives under the
stress ranges of 210 and 230 MPa and the predictions of initiation life
under the stress ranges of 170 and 190 MPa.
5.3.2. Corroded friction connection
Because the predicted crack initiation lives for the SWT, FS (kf =
0.2), and LE parameters were quite close (shown in Table 6), only the
SWT and FS (kf = 0.8) parameters were considered to investigate the
corrosion effects on the fatigue performance of the connections. The
predictions in two periods together with the test results are shown in
Fig. 19.
For the specimens on corrosion level A, the experimental life is much
smaller than the sum of the predicted life in two periods. The predicted
initiation life of the fretting crack is>2 million cycles when the stress
range is under 210 MPa. However, only one specimen did not fracture
after 2 million cycles and the corresponding stress range is 144 MPa. It
indicates that the pitting corrosion on the surface greatly reduced the
crack initiation life although the mass loss of the connection is only 4 %
and no obvious pits were observed on the contact surfaces. Moreover,
C. Jiang et al. International Journal of Fatigue 168 (2023) 107392

Fig. 16. Prediction process of the crack propagation life.

Fig. 17. Prediction of the fretting fatigue crack initiation site.

Table 8
Fretting crack initiation life.
Stress range Test life Predicted crack initiation life (x104)
(MPa) (x104)
SWT FS (kf = FS (kf = LE
0.8) 0.2)

170 >200 >200 >200 >200 >200

190 >200 >200 >200 >200 >200
210 141.3 60.0 122.7 80.3 58.4
230 56.2 19.3 26.9 19.2 16.0

the experimental life is 1.92, 1.88, 2.22, and 1.85 times of the predicted
crack propagation life when the stress range is 170, 190, 210, and 230
MPa, respectively. As such, the initiation life caused by fretting damage
still contributes to near 50 % of the total fatigue life. For the specimens
on corrosion level B, the experimental life is slightly larger than the
crack propagation life. The initial crack nucleated rapidly due to the
corrosion effect and the contribution of the fretting wear decreases with
the increase of the corrosion degree. For the specimens on corrosion
level C, it is found that the experimental fatigue life can be estimated
directly by the crack propagation life and the maximum error is within
21 %. It shows that the large corrosion pits near the hole edge can be Fig. 18. Comparison of the predicted and experimental fatigue lives.

14
C. Jiang et al.
Fig. 19. Predictions of the corroded specimens: (a) corrosion level A; (b) corrosion level B; (c) corrosion level C;
considered as the initial crack nucleation site and the crack initiation life
due to the fretting damage can be ignored in the prediction otherwise
the total fatigue life will be overpredicted. Although the fatigue life will
be influenced by the slip factor and bolt preload loss, the reduction of the
crack initiation life due to the corrosion pits is the major factor which
accounts for the degradation of the fatigue resistance of the connections
within 10 % mass loss.
The comparison of the predicted crack propagation life and the
experimental life for all the specimens is shown in Fig. 20. All the pre­
dictions are within the error band of 3 times and the predicted lives of
specimens on corrosion level B and C are within the error band of 2
times. It shows that the fatigue life of the corroded friction connections
with>7.8 % mass loss can be predicted by assuming an initial crack at
the hole edge in the minimum cross-section plane and ignoring the crack
initiation life induced by fretting damage. The initial crack size also
increases with the corrosion degree. It should be noted that the
remaining fatigue life of the friction connections after corrosion was
mainly investigated in this study. When the connections used in civil and
marine structures are subjected to combined actions of fatigue and
15
International Journal of Fatigue 168 (2023) 107392
corrosion during service life, the corrosion fatigue life of the connections
could not be estimated by the method proposed in this study as it may
lead to unsafe predictions.
6. Conclusions
The fatigue performance of corroded friction connections with high-
strength bolts was studied in this paper. Fatigue test was conducted on
the connection specimens with four corrosion levels, and the fracture
and contact surfaces were analyzed. Based on the FE model of the
specimen, the crack initiation life caused by the fretting fatigue was
calculated based on several multiaxial fatigue criteria, and the crack
propagation life under the complex stress field was predicted using the
AFGROW software. The predicted lives were compared with the test
results and the corrosion effects on the fatigue behavior of the connec­
tions were discussed. The following conclusions are drawn:
1. The uncorroded double lap friction connections have high fatigue
resistance compared with the specified value in Eurocode 3. Fatigue
C. Jiang et al.
Fig. 20. Comparison of the predicted crack propagation lives and experimental
fatigue lives.
life of the friction connections could be significantly reduced by
corrosion. When the mass loss ratio of the connections is over 7.8 %,
the fatigue strength at 2 million cycles is below 100 MPa, which does
not meet the requirements in Eurocode 3.
2. The failure modes show that the fatigue crack initiates at the hole
edge near the minimum cross-section of the inner plates. The fretting
wear around the hole can be observed on the surfaces for the
uncorroded connections. For the corroded connections, all the con­
tact surfaces are corroded and the coupled damage of fretting wear
and corrosion can be observed at the hole edge. The inner and cover
plates cannot be perfectly clamped by the high-strength bolts and the
corrosive solution will inevitably permeate through the connections.
3. The fatigue fracture surfaces show that the fatigue crack initiates at
the fretting wear scar when the connection is uncorroded. For the
corroded connections, the increase of the pitting damage and the
decrease of the fretting damage can be observed at the hole edge with
the increase of the corrosion degree. For the connections with a 10 %
mass loss, the fretting damage on the contact surface is not signifi­
cant and the maximum pitting depth is near 0.5 mm.
4. The contact analysis based on the FE model shows that sliding areas
of the contact surfaces around the hole increases with the increase of
the loading stress. The contact parameters are affected by the slip
factor, preloading force, and loading stress.
5. The predicted initiation site of the fretting fatigue crack agrees well
with the failure mode in the test. The fatigue life prediction method
in which the crack initiation and propagation lives are both consid­
ered can accurately predict the fatigue behavior of the uncorroded
connections under different stress ranges. The predictions of the
corroded connections indicate that the great reduction of the fretting
crack initiation life accounts for the degradation of fatigue resistance
of the corroded connections. The fatigue life of the corroded friction
connections with a mass loss ratio>7.8 % can be predicted by
assuming an initial crack at the hole edge in the minimum cross-
section plane.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
16
International Journal of Fatigue 168 (2023) 107392
Data availability
Data will be made available on request.
Acknowledgements
The support of the National Science Foundation of China (52108271,
52022021, and 51978160), the Key Research and Development Program
of Jiangsu Province of China (BE2021089), the China Postdoctoral
Science Foundation (2022T150119), and the Fundamental Research
Funds for the Central Universities is gratefully acknowledged.
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