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Copyright of FME Transactions is the property of University of Belgrade, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article describes the experimental studies of a preloaded asymmetric multi-bolted connection in the exploitation state. The construction of two stands were introduced: for bolt calibration and for evaluating the bolt forces in a multi-bolted connection. The bolts were tightened in a specific optimal sequence, in three passes, monitoring the force values in the bolts using a calibrated strain gauge measuring system. The studies were conducted for the selected multi-bolted connection on an Instron 8850 testing machine. The measurement data were saved in MATLAB R2018b Simulink. The measurement results were analysed statistically and are presented via charts showing the distributions of the normalised values of the bolt forces as a function of the linearly increasing and decreasing exploitation loads. We show that the forces in individual bolts, after unloading the multi-bolted connection, change in relation to the initial values of their preload. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]