In this work, bolt and nut geometries are modified for the improvement of fatigue life of the bolt–nut connections. The modifications are aimed at reducing the stress concentration at the thread roots by factors such as reducing the shank diameter, making axial hole in bolt, stepping the nut and their combinations. The effect of modifications is studied by experiment and simulation. The experimental results show that all types of modifications considered result in an improvement in the fatigue resistance of bolt–nut connections but to different extents. However, the effects of the two latter types are more significant. The most improvement is achieved for the case when all types of modifications are combined together. In this case, fatigue life can be increased by almost 100%. Numerical results also show that all types of modifications lead to the reduction of stress concentration.
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