Determining residual tension in threaded fasteners

Abstract

The present disclosure provides systems and methods for determining residual tension of a target bolt. An example method may include modeling ratios of times-of-flight of longitudinal waves and times-of-flight of shear waves as a function of tension for a plurality of test bolts. The modeling may include receiving data from longitudinal wave and shear wave transducers, analyzing the data to assess certain quality characteristics, and using a machine learning algorithm to create the model. The example method may further include determining a ratio of a time-of-flight of longitudinal waves and a time-of-flight of shear waves in a target bolt. The example method may further include determining residual tension in the target bolt based on the model and the ratio of a time-of-flight of longitudinal waves and time-of-flight of shear waves in the target bolt.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.