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Shear Force in Circular Bulkhead

Hi,

If I have a circular bulkhead which is divided into quarters, which are bolted together, what is the shear force in the bolts joining the quarters?

I've modelled the bulkhead as pinned around the edge so I believe the max shear force will be at the edges but I'm not sure about determining it's size.

Say the net force on the bulkhead is 60 Ton, what is the shear at the joints.

Is it 60/4 = 15 Ton but distributed as a triangle with maximum at the edge and minimum at the center of the bulkhead.

If that is correct, how do you go about solving the bolting required. Do you average out the load over sections, say three sections over the radius (a kind of numerical solution) and then use these values to calculated the number of bolts required ? See below.

Outer edge of bulkhead > [High Shear|Medium|Low] < Center of bulkhead

Hopefully this isn't to confusing. Just need to get a second opinion on my method.

Cheers Tony Mulholland

Reply to
Tony
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Each side of the bulkhead supports 1/2 of the load. You can treat each half as a curved beam. Each joint has to carry the moment to each quarter piece.

Reply to
Jeff Finlayson

Tony:

There is not enough information given. Even if the sizes are not given the basic setup is required. a circular bulkhead can be made up in several different ways. Loading conditions. how is the load applied to the bulkhead. I am assuming this is a shipping application. Much of this analysis is done by FEA. A picture or sketch would help. You could be talking about bent I-beams or a cylinder of flat plate, or the list goes on. The method of the bulkhead constuction is also important. just saying a bulkhead having a 60 ton load does nothing to be able to analyze the problem. 60 ton load where? the pins may only get bending moment loads. any force perpendular to the pins longitudinal direction will cause a shear force across then of 1/(Npins) as each pin would carry the full load.what is the stength of the pins vs the material? F/A = stress. Is the stress in the pins too high? Is there a possibility of tearout? Bending moments musts be considered also. Von Mises may come into play. I just can't glean enough information from your first message. A curved beam approach may work in "special loading conditions". The special conditions case is less likely then others with having bolted connections shear will be highest where the material has the thinnest cross sectional area. Ie the pins if they are in direct shear. Bulkheads from my experience tend to take forces from varying directions. Roark's Formulas for Stress and Strain is your best bet on odd shapes and different loading conditions.

I have both Roark's 6th and 7th edition sitting in my office. Let me know if you need any additional assistance.

Best Regards, Daniel Lee

Reply to
Daniel Lee

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