Uncertainty analysis of the coefficients of friction during the tightening process of bolted joints

In this paper, we introduce closed-form symbolic expressions for the possibility distributions of the coefficients of friction during the tightening process of bolted joints. The parameters in the distribution functions are then identified by a standardized fastener testing system according to ISO 16047. An uncertainty analysis finally shows that the total amount of uncertainty in the coefficient of bearing friction is almost 40% larger than in the coefficient of thread friction. Furthermore, the real value of the coefficent of bearing friction is likely to be about 5% higher than the expected value.