A numerical investigation of the sealing performance and the strength of a raised face metallic bolted flange joint

The development of leakage and strength of a metallic bolted flange joint are investigated in this work. Finite element analyses in 2D and 3D have been developed using ANSYS to study a steel flange and bolt with an aluminium gasket. The pressure-penetration criterion (PPNC) in ANSYS has been used to model fluid leakage propagation between the flange and the gasket. Validation was performed with a benchmark test, using published study of a bolted metallic flange joint; the agreement between the results is excellent. Results showed that the finite element method using PPNC is a good method to study leakage behaviour compared to other methods, which are relatively time-consuming and expensive. The influence of the flange dimensions on the maximum stresses and leakage propagation has been investigated in this study. Furthermore, the agreement between the 3D and axisymmetric 2D FEA models is very good, so the latter can be used to save computational time. This study was undertaken as a preliminary to a larger project about bolted flange joints made of composite materials.