Innovative joining technologies for weight reduction in vehicles for lowering polluting emissions

Threaded fasteners are vastly used in the industry due to ease of mounting and dismounting and flexibility of design. Nonetheless, several researchers indicate that most failures recorded on nearly any kind of machinery and vehicles are initiated at fasteners. The problems can become significant when material of the threaded fasteners is changed due to change in material properties such as friction behaviour. This thesis aims at self-loosening failure in light weight threaded fasteners. The analysis involves the analytical modelling of the self-loosening phenomenon and development of an experimental test rig for testing self-loosening in threaded fasteners. The purpose of this thesis is to give a systematic glance of the practical loadings applied to the light weight threaded fasteners, used in automobiles and aerospace industry. This can help the scientific and technical community, to correctly orient future investigations on the self-loosening behaviour of light weight threaded fasteners. Moreover, more realistic approach for testing the loading conditions on the automotive, earth moving machinery and aerospace will be possible which will assist in more efficient design of the bolted joints.