Pin-loaded joint contact in anisotropic viscoelastic plates via a semi-analytical method

Abstract

Fiber-reinforced polymer matrix composites are widely used in engineering structures, where pin/bolt-loaded joints are essential for assembly. These composites often exhibit anisotropic and viscoelastic behaviors, making the analysis of pin-loaded hole contact problems particularly challenging. This paper introduces a new semi-analytical method (SAM) for analyzing contact behaviors in anisotropic viscoelastic plates with pin-loaded holes. The method relies on surface Green’s functions, which are derived using a time-stepping approach for a viscoelastic plate subjected to a concentrated load on the hole boundary. These functions allow analytical computation of the influence matrices, which ensure both accuracy and efficiency in SAM. The method can be applied to various contact situations, including interference, transition, and loose fits. The method also accounts for frictionless and frictional contact surfaces. To examine the correctness and demonstrate the generality of the proposed SAM, numerical results are provided and compared with the results obtained by the available solution methods, such as BEM. After verification, parametric studies are implemented to examine the effects of several important parameters, such as pin size, applied force, friction coefficient, material anisotropy, Prony’s coefficients of stiffness constants, and relaxation time, on the contact behaviors of the hole in the anisotropic viscoelastic plate.