Finding the Limits of Beam Elements: Modeling Bolted Joints as an Effective Joint Region 135 Fig. 6 Comparison of experimental data and optimization results for six bolt tightening orders, MSSF similarity metric. Fig. 7 Comparison of EJR properties across six bolt tightening orders, frequency range divided into four windows, MSSF similarity metric. higher frequencies, the optimization process was required to compensate for this which likely contributed to the prediction of non-physical properties. Conclusion A method for modeling joints using inexpensive element formulations was developed and demonstrated to have good performance in the case of the BRB benchmark structure. A 99.988% reduction in computation time was achieved when compared to standard practice solid element joint modeling with better agreement to experimental data. The EJR method was shown to have low sensitivity to joint non-repeatability and similarity metric cost function formulation for optimization. The performance of various FRF similarity metrics for model updating in joints was also explored. In comparison to previous model updating techniques that parameterize joints, the EJR method can be applied in any commercial finite element modeling package which gives it the potential to be a powerful and accessible tool for modeling the dynamic response of jointed structures. Further research into the methods developed by this work must be done to validate EJR models against a structure containing many joints. Improvements in property physicality can likely be made by further dividing the EJR elements into bolt regions and non-bolt regions. Additionally, generalization of the EJR method to more than just Euler-Bernoulli beam elements is a necessary step in creating a complete method of analysis for real-world structures.
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