Joint Failure Task

[Raikoh]

I am stumped by the following question given to me to prepare an answer for. Although it is not expected for me to have the exact and correct answer, I would like to have someone point me to the right direction. Thank you.

2eplc8m-2.jpg

[PinkertonD]

What you are being asked here is to think and "feel" how that joint works and what and where loads will be pinpointed to. Asking here for direction is totally contrary to the idea behind it. They spell it out for you, you are to think about this.

If you are pursuing a career in Engineering it is imperative that you can look at something and get a "feel" for what is or might be happening. If you do not have this innate ability, then Engineering may be a hard row to hoe for you. I don't mean to sound elitist, but unless you already have that "feel" for things mechanical, a lot of understanding problems will take much, much more work.

[jboggs]

I'm not sure how this fits in with the stated policy of this forum on helping with homework, but...

One thing that always helped me is to learn to "put myself" in the position of each component of a design, and try to look at its environment from its point of view. I know this sounds awfully touchy-feely for an engineer, but there is some common sense here. For example, if you are one of the two bolts in this scenario, you don't "know" that any other bolts even exist, much less how many there are. You don't "know" how long either of the connected pieces are. You don't "know" where any of the forces or supports are. You have no idea how much torque or moment is involved because for all intents and purposes you are a single point. What do you "know"? You know how much tension you are under because you feel it. You "know" how much lateral force (shear load) you are feeling from each of the two members you touch. You "know" how much the stress is at the root of each threads because you feel it. So, how many possible modes of failure are revealed by looking at things that way? Several.

You can go through a similar analysis for each component. Hope that helps. Just one old fart's way of thinking.

[Raikoh]

Thanks for your very helpful post jboggs. I am quite a visual person, so I can see how each component is affecting one another, and like you said, it does help me a lot. Before my post I did think of a few possible modes of failure, but did not think of the stripping of the thread under stress!
I know this sounds like an excuse, PinkertonD, but I just recently transfer to Engineering so maybe my analytical thinking and problem solving skills are not up to scratch. When I post the question, I wasn't expecting an answer, more like, for people to help me see the question in a different light. Thank you for taking your time to respond.

[PierArg]

Hi Raikoh,
I'm sorry you minded for Pinkerton's answer.
I'm sure he didn't want to blame you. I think he just wanted to encourage you to face your problem by yourself.

As you know, forums are plenty of people who believes that members can do homework for them...but this is NOT your situation.

If I can give you an advice, the next time you could put your question together with your own solution. In this way you can ask not "the solution" but what other people think about it.
You'll see you receive much more answers.