bolting by design presented at maintenance …...because they were having cut bolts on a ball mill....

LIVE LOAD Valley Forge & Bolt Mfg. Co. Quarterly Newsletter 2015 Edition III

Held at the Westin Indianapolis and sponsored by the AIST Maintenance and Reliability Technical Committee, the 2015 AIST

“Maintenance Solutions - A Practical Training Seminar” featured 28 events. Presented by industry leaders and subject matter experts, topics covered ‘Best-In-Class’ practices on Reliability, Hydraulics, Maintenance, Bearings, Lubrication, and Assembly of Bolted Joints.

Attended by 78 members of the Association of Iron and Steel Technology from the US and Canada, the guests were from a diverse background with a common interest in steel making.

Presenting for Valley Forge & Bolt, Jay Palmer educated and informed the “Bolting by Design” session attendees on the importance of assembly, as the often overlooked and frequently most critical aspect of insuring a reliable bolted joint. By covering the quality checks involved in all the steps of fastener design and manufacturing, it is quickly evident that conventional assembly processes have the least amount of controls with the fewest measurables, for proper tension when using methods like torque. Recognizing this common deficiency in assembly methods, the ASTM created F2482. F2482, the “Standard Specification for Load-Indicating Externally Threaded Fasteners”, takes bolt load to a higher level by creating a measurable quality standard for assembly that equals the manufacturing

processes to make the bolts. To qualify for F2482, a fastener must provide a means to verify the desired clamp load upon installation and in service. The group was very intrigued with load indicating technology as it uses elongation to precisely determine load. The need for accurate tensioning for safety and reliability is obvious and the attendees embraced the concept whole-heartedly. Numerous questions and positive feedback followed, accompanied by heads nodding in agreement. Follow-up ‘lunch and learn’ presentations are being scheduled for maintenance crews at mills.

BOLTING BY DESIGNpresented at Maintenance Solutions Seminar

by Jay Palmer

LIVE LOAD Valley Forge & Bolt Mfg. Co. Quarterly Newsletter 2015 Edition III LIVE LOAD Valley Forge & Bolt Mfg. Co. Quarterly Newsletter 2015 Edition III Page 3

Anecdotes from the President

September 30, 2015

Introduction

It is hard for me to admit, but alas true, that I was not always the all-knowing, wonderful, omnipotent,…. in bolting matters only of course… no purple cap here… ever modest guru, that all my three followers know me as. Feeling the need to help you innocent bolting engineers…. Halley to note… that are untouched by harsh reality, I swallow my pride to bring back that nightmare window from the past in this anecdote remembering the matter of:

THAT DAMN VALVE.

Looking back I can see why it took months of trial and error to fix what I considered poor design causing a simple bolt breakage problem. The valve was a large poppit style, about a foot in diameter that was driven open to allow fast approach of the slide downward and closed, to transit into pressing speed, just above the part to be trimmed. The Press would run for a few days and crash. The 16mm bolt holding the valve in place would fail. Fast approach would not slow down to pressing speed and tools would say “ouch”.

After a few failures we decided the obvious fix would be to beef up to a larger fastener and then a larger yet when that didn’t work, and at

that stage, we pick up the story which continues as everything in India does, at tea time of course. I spent more time drinking tea than working, so that’s probably why my eyeballs are still yellow... Anyway, there I was, drinking tea and munching Samosa’s with my good friend Erik, the plant maintenance super, discussing the latest repeat event involving… right….. you guessed it, that dam valve on my #!@%$<> (adjective) German hydraulic trim press that had crashed again, and Alberts was there. Alberts was an older bugger, a nice enough soft spoken chap….. wasn’t even a mechanic because he was only a lowly electrical supervisor, and part of his job was replacing fuses for Pete’s sake. So naturally, following the industrial caste system prevalent at that time, was considered mentally inferior….. So of course I had every right to look down on him….

By this time everyone in the forge and his brother were aware of my valve problem and maybe the whole world for all I knew. My genius reputation caused by a swollen

head was in danger. Listening to our frustrated conversation while drinking tea through a monster mug, Alberts, as others before him, mildly ventured a simple fix that he had used successfully on his bicycle pump, which brought laughs and jeers from the room, along with a rude comment by me as to where he could put the fix and the pump. Because most of my problems were with German

machines I remember feeling in those early days that the whole German race was against me and that they were

winning. Of course this could well have been because most of the machines I installed were German anyway and I was too proud to ask the engineers at Banning who I felt would laugh at such a simple problem! I was quite young but already showing my Guru qualities in stupid.

Fast forward six months and I am at Banning, the press builder, touring our German principals from whom the company I work for import and resell machinery. I unload all my pent up Valve misery including some under my breath on Herr Joachim, the unfortunate spokesperson from their engineering department who apologetically tells me that they do not use that system any more but that they had suggested a simple fix that had I possibly not received…. Call me sensitive, but I know he was slyly laughing at me. He then showed me a sketch of the fix, which left me red faced and many hat sizes smaller. It was Alberts’ bicycle fix exactly… even including leather as the material used to absorb the shock when the

valve closed. Yes SHOCK, IMPACT causing load spikes were loosening and finally fatigue failing the fastener which did not require any assembly preload. But of course you all knew this and the moral of this story is less about bolting and more about listening.

A little respect for other people’s opinions can lead to good things.In conclusion… I heard that sigh of editor relief.

As your ever knowing…. etc. .etc.. modest as always, bolting Guru I would end by mentioning a tea party

on my return from the Deutschland sponsored by me.. I paid… for Mister Alberts, no less, to acknowledge his successful contribution to the institute of unaware bolting fixes and other unmentionable things and to inform him that Herr Joachim would like to hire him as head of design fixes for Banning or was it banging… can’t remember but my head size did grow back to require extra-large Mexican sombreros…

OK the end.

by Ron Clarke

“A little respect for other people’s opinions can lead

to good things.”

“I swallow my pride to bring back

that nightmare window from

the past....”

LIVE LOAD Valley Forge & Bolt Mfg. Co. Quarterly Newsletter 2015 Edition III Page 4 LIVE LOAD Valley Forge & Bolt Mfg. Co. Quarterly Newsletter 2015 Edition III Page 5

VFB: Tell us what Protorq does.CARLOS: We have been dealing with bolted connection of all kinds since 1995, working with a wide variety of providers that offer different technologies. Thanks to that fact, and our experience today, we could conclude that what really matters on any critical bolted joint is bolts tension rather than torque. Thereby today we are able to support any kind of critical bolted joint in mining, power generation, petrochemicals and refineries, and whatever industry, just because we know that we must put all focus and attention in to the bolt tension. VFB: How long have you been in the critical bolted joint business?CARLOS: Since 1995, so 20 years.VFB: What are some of the interesting or unique things that you’ve gotten to see and do in your career?CARLOS: Through the years we have seen and experienced many unique things, but I could say that all of them had something in common, that was to solve critical bolted joint problem. Let me tell a good one.

There was a mining company that contacted us because they were having cut bolts on a ball mill. In few words they stopped the mill every month to change 10 cut bolts, always at the same position. Besides the maintenance issue, stopping production every month means monetary costs. We end up showing the customer that they were just torqueing the bolts, and not considering any variables which affect the torque process. They were mostly not achieving the needed clamping load, which lead the bolts to getting cut because of fatigue. To solve the problem, and at the same time let them see what was wrong with their tightening procedure, we let them perform their torque procedure on SPC4 bolts. This showed them that the tension achieved on each bolt, just by relying on torque, wasn’t even close to the half of the needed clamping load. Then we finished the process by taking the SPC4 bolts to the right tension. This joint never failed again.VFB: How did [you and] Protorq first get introduced to Valley Forge? How did the relationship start?CARLOS: Well, it’s kind of a funny story.In 2000, I was at the Expomin Mining Show in Santiago, Chile. Bret (Bret Halley, VFB’s CEO) was

SPC4™ Application: Protorq - ChileVFB interview with Carlos Recart of Protorq - Chile

(cont’d) was there to speak with a couple other representatives in liner bolts, etc. Long story short, I was asked to translate for Bret, and as he spoke to these representatives he didn’t seem to like them. While I was translating, I started to learn what they were doing and thought it was very interesting. I figured out that I should work with Valley Forge. And that’s how we came to start working together and began a long standing relationship with Valley Forge.VFB: How have Valley Forge’s products been beneficial to you and Protorq’s work?CARLOS: First of all, let me thank Ron and Bret for all they have taught us about bolted joints through these 15 years working together. The Valley Forge “SPC4 technology” has allowed us to open doors. Innovative new technology and good level of knowledge will always open any doors on any market.The SPC4 technology is by far the easiest way to solve any critical bolted joint issue. To have the answer for any kind of bolted joint, on any kind of industry at your fingertips, that’s everything. What else we could ask for?

VFB: How are the load indicating fasteners changing the work that you do at Protorq? CARLOS: If you look inside any segment of the industry, that are working with and understand critical bolted join behavior, there’s one thing in

common for all of them: they are all focusing on the bolt tension. It’s easy to see how the technology used on critical fastener has changed the last 20 years, more and more people understand that to have a safe and reliable bolted connection, all the attention should be on the bolt tension. So to working with load indicating fasteners, for Protorq, is to be ahead in bolting technology. To be number one in the bolting industry. To be the reference when people care about bolts tension. To be able to help and solve customer bolting problems. To protect our customers assets.

VFB: How is time saved with the use of load indicating fasteners as opposed to other methods?CARLOS: With SPC4 technology all you have to do is to easily plug the probe to the bolt, tighten it till you read the desired tension, and save pushing just one button. Let’s say that you make a mistake with load indicators, for us to go there and double check that everything is right or wrong is so easy, repeat the mentioned process.With UT, first you need to up load all the fastener specifications to the unit, then add all the factors like temperature and stress. Then identify every bolt, bolt groups, separating them by length and position, then create the same groups in the unit. Then read and save every bolt length before installation, then on tightening process, before any reading, you have to measure temperature and keep doing it all through the process as temperature variation affects

https://www.vfbolts.com/anecdotes-from-the-president/


The process of mating a bolt and nut together in tension has a long history, there have been plenty of changes in design and standardizations, but

in tightening – most bolts still get torqued in some fashion. From centuries old wooden manufactured bolts and nuts hand fitted together, to modern day alloys made to many standards, most problems dealt with in the fastener applications do not develop or maintain the design load in the torquing process.

When analyzed, the manufacturing process controls, all the various bolting standards, material selection and design of equipment - the engineering level is detailed,

documented and quite effective. Fastener installation however, relying on measurement of twisting force rather than equipment design load being achieved, does affect equipment reliability in our world today.

Valley Forge has seen application after application improve with some form of design load verification. Applications which have used our MaxBolt™ or SPC4™ Load Indicating fasteners have data logged, graphed bolt load and enjoyed an added benefit of real time joint loading. Knowing what load is present in the fastener, or entire joint, no matter what tensioning system is used to install, increases

Technical Article:

Future of Fasteners is Loadedby Bret Halley, Chief Operating Officer

(cont’d) readings. To make the story short with UT you will need qualified people and much more time. Not to mention that if for any reason you lose the original measurements, you have to do it all over again. VFB: What is the highest altitude mine location that you’ve ever installed our bolts? CARLOS: That would be 4,400 meters at Mina Collahuasi in Chile. And then Las Bambas in Peru at 4,600 meters.VFB: What is the most beneficial way to install larger fasteners?CARLOS: Let’s say from four inches and up, the best way to do it is using tensioners, as you are turning the nut free of tension avoiding friction, because all the tension is on the tensioner. For smallest sizes on critical joint SPC4 is our choice. VFB: What are the most common misconceptions with torque versus load in a bolted joint?

CARLOS: Just what you said [laughter]! The easy way to understand why most of people have this misconceptions is this: In all industries you will find two kinds of connections; welded connections and bolted connections. If you want to apply for any outage or new project, you must follow the requirement specified on the basis. But it’s kind of funny that if you read the basis, it’s a must that all the welders have to be qualified and certified (have to be traceable) on each particular welding process. On the other side, the people that will work on bolted joint are not even mentioned on the basis. That’s way people understand very little about bolted joints, nobody really cares. Everybody says bolts are so easy “right is to tight and left is to loose”, “a correct torque wrench it’s enough”... But when they start to learn, then they are able to see that there’s a whole world of difference between torque and tension. I could say that after 20 years, we are still learning.


product reliability, speed of installation and safety. Inspection of load rather than torque is attained in seconds with some load indicating systems. The Industrial Fastener Institute (www.indfast.org) equates “nearly 95% of fastener failures are the result of poor fastener selection or improper installation”. With technology changing in the last couple of decades, torqueing or wondering if a fastener is loaded to design, is “old school” compared to engineered products on the market in the 21st century.

Valley Forge & Bolt’s history in supporting customers has lead us into ways we can inspect for load rather than just installing to a torque value. Not only do we know tightening fasteners to a verified load is the best way to solve problems for customers, we are building the future with being able to supply customers with ways to verify fasteners are correctly loaded. Our patent list is growing with specialty products all centered on solutions to increase the odds of actually achieving and maintaining design load. The vision and goal of Valley Forge building load indicating fasteners, faster, better and cheaper is becoming a reality.

The Clarkester™ Tester for proving torque develops load in mill lining systems, is now a stocked item at Valley Forge with demand and results in the mining community. Information on load rather than torque is being discussed more often and products are readily available from Valley Forge and various other suppliers. ASTM F 2482 has laid the base rules for product classified as Load Indicating Externally Threaded Fasteners. As more sites and applications are benefiting with the use of load for installation over torque, we push for engineered manufacturing to drive cost out and open the market to all applications, not solely critical applications.

Current research and development projects at Valley Forge includes predictive maintenance with load indicating fasteners. There is more to do and tests are underway with wired and wireless systems, instigating cracks in loaded fasteners and temperature limits of reading bolts (currently reading at 640 F) and gauges. The future of fasteners is loaded, and we look forward to moving away from being torqued!

Heat Treatment Settled into Full Production

Our newly installed “Heat Treat” department has settled into full production mode. Forecasted production schedules are being predictively met. To insure continuous throughput, operator training is now underway. We have incorporated Metal Training Institute (MTI) for our heat treat training program. We have implemented Class 100: Qualified Furnace Operator and Class 150: Heat Treat Technical Specialist (HTTC), as standard practice for our operator training. Under the supervision of our on-site Metallurgist, Karl Vaughn, we continue providing our customers with the highest of quality products while meeting their scheduling needs.

THE LATEST AT VALLEY FORGEThe summer is a bit slower in the Valley, but here’s what we’ve een up to!

FMMS Conference

Jay Palmer and Jeff Blankenship were in San Diego at the Fleet Maintenance & Modernization Symposium 2015 presented by the American Society Naval Engineers.They had numerous demo flanges to give demonstrations on the SPC4™ Wireless Model that is now in testing. In

addition they took a beautiful Maxbolt™ Knowledge that was recently created with a high visibility indicator, capable of being seen at great distances. As per usual, they also had samples of the original Maxbolt™, SPC4™, Ball Lock Washers and so much more!!

This annual event is targeted at US Navy fleet personnel and suppliers. Attended by Port Engineers, Admirals, and Tech Warrant Officers alike, the theme of the event and focus of vendors is on improving reliability and reducing cost and repair. From General Dynamics to Superbolt, and complete ships to pumps, adhesives, and engineering services, all topics relate to reduced cost and more reliability.

We were very well received by everyone who witnessed our demo and products. Most had never seen such technology and embraced it with positive feedback.

London Forum Prestentation

September 17th, 2015, at the great Victoria in London, Barry Thomas presented “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” to the London Forum of the Heat Transfer Society. Barry talked about bolted joints and explained the advantages of Load Indicating Technology. He has wide experience in bolting technology going back to 1972, including specific experience in the oil and gas industry and applications in structures, mechanical equipment, cranes and pressure vessels. If you happen to be in London make sure to stop by!!

LIVE LOAD Valley Forge & Bolt Mfg. Co. Quarterly Newsletter 2015 Edition III Page 10

THE LATESTSomething in the Water in

Engineering...

It appears as though there is something in the water in the VFB Engineering Departement! This quarter, VFB engineers Rusty Flocken and Brandon Proebster both welcomed new boucing babies to the department! Rusty and his wife Tanya welcomed baby girl Evelyn Jean on July 16th, 2015. Brandon and his wife Amy welcomed baby boy Lucas Brandon on September 3rd, 2015. Both families are severely sleep deprived but doing well! We congratualte both families on their adorable additions.

IFI Fall MeetingMichele Clarke had the arduous task of representing Valley Forge for the IFI Fall Meeting this past September. The Industrial Fastener Institute (IFI) is an institute that was started in 1931 to service the people, industry and customer of North American Fasteners. Valley Forge has been a member of this organization for many years. The venue was The Inn at Harbour Town on Hilton Head Island – with a PGA Tournament golf course available for the obligatory and very competitive IFI Golf Tournament.The meetings are a chance for industry professionals to discuss many of the issues that are common to all of us. We were presented with the current economic outlook by Dr. Ken Mayland of ClearView Economics, Captain Ryan Davis, USMC, lecturing on what the U.S. Marine Corp of the future will look like, a presentation on McGill University and their engineering internship program, and Dan Sharkey of Brooks, Wilkins, Sharkey & Turco PLLC on contracts and litigation in the supply-chain. We also got updated on Government Issue by Jennifer Baker Reid of The Laurin Baker Group.The next meeting will be Spring 2016 in Phoenix our hometown!

We cannot believe that 2015 is nearly coming to a close! As we bear down for the HOLIDAY SEASON and all the chaos it creates, we hope that you and your families have an exciting and joyful holiday and make a safe entry into the new year. Wecan’t wait to see you next time inJanuary 2016!

bolting by design presented at maintenance …...because they were having cut bolts on a ball mill....

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