CoryPad:
Your answer (based on the external thread tensile stress area) appears to assume that the length of thread engagement is sufficient to fail the bolt thread in tension (that is, that the length and strength of the external and internal threads is sufficient that they will not "strip" or "shear" prior to bolt tensile failure, but will support the full tensile capability of the bolt). There doesn't appear (to me) to be enough information in the original post to support that assumption.
I think additional information is needed:
We are told the "bolt length" is 25mm. But is this the length of the engaged internal and external threads? If not, what is the length of engaged threads?
Are both the external and internal threads the same material/strength (A356-T6)?
Is the pitch 2mm, as you apparently assumed based on your tensile stress area (needed for thread shear area calculations)?
While the externally threaded meter of the coupling has been described as a “bolt”, on the off chance does this “bolt” have a hole through the middle of it? The use of “coupling” in the post makes me wonder if this is a “fluid” coupling – which might be hollow...
What is the thread class/fit (this can have and effect of thread stripping/shear calculations)?
See thread404-11447 for a similar discussion regarding stripping of internal aluminum threads. JohnF_Al, you can calculate the length of engagement required to prevent shear or "stripping" of the aluminum thread at the anticipated design load. This calculation is based on the geometric shear area of the thread at minimum material condition and shear strength of the parent thread material. An excellent source of formulas, information and examples for performing these (and other) thread strength calculations are found in Appendix B of FED-STD-H28/2B -- available for free at
These formulas are relatively simple, accurate and readily lend themselves to entry and reuse in a spreadsheet. If you don’t know the shear strength of your materials, two possible sources of free online information are MatWeb (usually “typical” values) at
or in MIL-HDBK-5 (usually statistically adjusted values to a given confidence level) at
(Warning: HUGE download, but the smaller, separately downloadable chapters available at euler9 managed to somehow lose the cast aluminum alloys at the end of Chapter 3). Alternately, you wish to use an applicable material specification “minimum guaranteed” value.
CoryPad, don’t take this personally, I am (and remain) a fan...