Reply To: Regarding Bolt pretension

[peteroznewman]

If the bolt shank between the nut and the head is one face, that could be used to apply a bolt pretension load.

Splitting the bolt shank face at the nut to keep the bonded contact separate from the rest of the shank is required.

If the bolt shank sits at the center of a clearance hole, and if the bolt pretension applied in step 1 is high enough, and if the frictional contact between the two plates has a high enough friction coefficient, then the two plates should not slip under any loads applied in step 2 and there is no need for frictional contact between the bolt shank and the two clearance holes. If the two plates do slip under applied loads in step 2, that bolted joint is inadequate and should be redesigned.