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Let’s take an example of 6mm thick plates to illustrate the rule. In case 12mm leg is adopted in the fillet weld, the weld volume would be 3-4 times more than required. It would result in waste of weld metal and welder’s time. Worse still, over-welding may weaken the structure and result in distortion owing to the formation of residue stress. As such, the resulting weld could support less stress than fillet weld with “the leg equal to the thickness of metals.”
Corrosion of aluminium can be triggered by putting it in contact with another metal in the presence of water. This is known as bimetallic corrosion or galvanic corrosion. The mechanism of such corrosion is the formation of a cell in moist condition so that an electric current is generated to flow between the two metals in direct contact. The degree of corrosion is influenced by the nature of connecting metals, their electrode potential, their areas, conductivity of fluid etc.
The force in a bolt in a bolted joint depends on the preloading force applied to it during the tightening operation. For instance, when the preloaded bolt is tightened with a certain force, the bolts’ internal force will not increase significantly if the external applied force on the bolted joint does not exceed the preloading force.
“Fastener” is a general term used to describe something which is used as a restraint for holding things together or attaching them to other things.
The main physical distinction between screws and bolts is that screws are entirely full of threads while bolts contain shanks without threads. However, a better interpretation of the differences between the two is that bolts are always fitted with nuts. On the contrary, screws are normally used with tapped holes.
High friction grip bolts are commonly used in structural steelwork. They normally consist of high tensile strength bolts and nuts with washers. The bolts are tightened to a shank tension so that the transverse load across the joint is resisted by the friction between the plated rather than the bolt shank’s shear strength.
