Expert On-Site Consulting for Bolted Joint Failures

At John Bickford’s bolting seminars in the 1980’s and 90’s, he always stated the following guidelines on what is required to achieve a successful bolted joint. “Think of a bolt as a spring. The clamping force applied must be tight enough to keep the bolted joint from separating or slipping during service; however, it should do so without damaging any of the joint components. The magnitude of the applied clamping force and the stability of that applied force will determine success or failure.”

Bolts that self-loosen, break, strip-threads, allow joint member slippage or permanently deform joint members, can be considered failures since they violate the requirements that were outlined above. Identifying the failure mode and determining the best solution to eliminate the source of the problem is of paramount importance to avoid costly production losses, warranty claims and repairs to capital equipment. Our association of engineers and technicians each have over 30 years of experience working with critical bolted joints. Two worked under John Bickford at Raymond Engineering while another worked with ultrasonic measurement of the many ultra-critical bolted joints on the Space Shuttle Main Engines. If you have experienced bolted joint failures, we can work with you to make the necessary changes to preload control methods, procedures and design in order to eliminate these failures.

IBT has performed On-Site Ultrasonic Bolt Measurement, Consulting or Ultrasonic Training on 5 continents in over 20 countries including: USA, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Finland, Germany, India, Japan, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Norway, Peru, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden, United Kingdom (England & Scotland), and Venezuela.