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vibration proof fasteners 2

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I work in a foundry and there is a lot of vibration occuring all the time. We are currently using Grade 5 bolts and in the process of changing to A325. I am looking for a solution to
stop fasteners from vibrating loose. I need some help to find a good method to use whether using an threadlocker, split washers, safety wire, or anything else that may be out
there to use. Im in the process of getting info about spiralock and nord lock fastners feel free to leave some input about these types of fastners

The simplest way to prevent vibration loosening is to have sufficient preload to resist applied forces. If "fastener magic" must be used, then consider adhesives, Nordlock, and
spiralok in that order. Split washers and safety wire do not prevent loosening.

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.

The testing i have seen indicates Loctite (or equal) threadlocker adhesives work the best at resisting vibration.

I am with 'boo1' on this. I use a variety of "LockTite" products in race and aviation engines and seldom have a problem. CoryPad is correct in that properly torqued fasteners are
less prone to failure from vibration and given that 'extra' little chemical help---should do the job! Oh yeah, last I looked A-325 bolts are grade 5. Perhaps you should go to properly
torqued A-490 if you are breaking bolts?

Rod

I did a lot of safety wiring in the navy as an aircraft eng mech and if a series of bolts can be wired so as one would loosen it will pull the next one tight it will work. For single bolts
we used a nut with a plastic insert built into the nut.

For all I know there are only two securers against nut loosening:
-Nordlock for high temperature
-Locktite for low temperature
Raymond

You might want to consider using very heavy


washers as well to lengthen the ratio of
clamped length. Going to a higher strength

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bolt should help as you mentioned. I agree


with CoryPad in that you may have to use
greater torque value maybe even into the plastic
range. Have you ever broken any bolts?

You might try spring washers. These are typically used in vibration applications to prevent loosening. Whether they will work depends on the magnitude of the
vibration. Otherwise you will have to try loctite.

Tack weld them. then a touch with a grinder (like the one you all use to grind the sprew and flash off) will allow the fastner to be loosened...

Wobble,

I'm with CoryPad. Preload is the key, plus Loctite as a pre-caution. Remeber that the Loctite acts a lub. when wet so adjust your torques accordingly. On the other hand, you may
want to consider uping your torques a little, instead of the standard 75% of proof strength, to gain more preload.

Spring washers of any type completely useless. Likewish jam nuts are rarely installed properly, so I wouldn't go there either.

Boozer

Be careful with Loctite! It may act as a lubricant but also as what it actually is, an adhesive. Depending what Kind of Loctite (red, green, blue) and how much you put on the threads
it will cause a great deviation in preload for a predefined torque.

Most locking systems based on increased friction are risky to use, since you may not achieve the desired preload.

I think the Nord-Lock washer is a better solution, since it is a mechanical locking system based on geometry instead of friction.

You might want to consider using the


turn of the nut method if the torque
coefficient is in question. It probably
will give you more consistant results.

CoryPad - Why do you say that lockwire doesn't prevent loosening? We used to make gear to go on helicopters and MIL-SPECs required everything to be lockwired. Like
"hydrodude" said, we did it in a fashion where it was impossible to loosen one without tightening another.

The big issue with lockwire is the hassle of putting it on.

wobbles-
Talk to any fastener vendor and he can provide you with bolts and screws that have nylon patches pre-installed. These are exceptional at preventing loosening and are good for,
say, five remove/install cycles. In situations where you can't get these in a timely manner, you can apply ND INDUSTRIES's Vibra-Tite to make your own locking patch. It takes

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24hrs to cure but it's certainly better than the Loctite series of locking compounds. It also doesn't care what size fastener you're using (as does Loctite).

For both of the above solutions, I don't know at what temperature they start to break down. The NORDLOC system of lock washers are good for high temperatures. Don't waste
money on helical-split or toothed lock washers. Not only do these fail to prevent loosening, they may actually contribute to joint failure by making the joints too soft.

Tunalover

Binary,

I say that lockwire doesn't prevent loosening because it doesn't. Its purpose it to prevent complete loss of the fasteners in the event that they loosen. The loose joint should be
noticeable, and actions can be taken to prevent catastrophic loss. For example, loose (but not missing) fasteners on helicopter parts would result in diminshed pilot control, in which
case the pilot would land immediately to avoid death to crew and passengers.

If my opinion and experience are insufficient evidence, here is a quote from An Introduction to the Design and Behavior of Bolted Joints by J. H. Bickford:

"Lock wires, keyes, and cotter pins are often used. These can effectively prevent total loss of the nut - which may be extremely important - but they are not very effective in
preventing substantial loss of preload within the fastener."

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.

CoryPad---Easy boy! Most of us that actually do a lot of safety wire work already know it's limitations (and it's 'puncturing' propensity LOL)!

Rod

evelrod--i haven't used safety wire that much before. what are some of the limitations of safety wire.
wobbles

CoryPad,

you seem a bit peeved by my question to you. Sorry to have offended you.

In my fairly limited experience with lockwire, it did serve to prevent loosening. Specifically, we were putting fasteners into blind holes on various pieces of electronic equipment on
helicopters and submarines.

We installed the lockwire at 9:00 on one screw, wrapped it clockwise over the top and then off tangent at about 1:30 and onto the adjacent fastener tangent at 6:00 and then
wrapped it CCW up to about 2:00.

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We used a device to twist the wire tight and it formed a pretty stiff connection. The only way for either fastener to loosen was to tighten the other one or to stretch the lockwire.
Sufficient torque prevented the former. The latter never seemed to be a problem.

I'm not trying to say that you're wrong, I was just trying to learn more about your experience and understand the applications and why they didn't work when our application did
work.

Regarding the quote from Mr. Bickford's book, I notice that he's talking about "nutted" connections. Perhaps that's the difference from our application. It does occur to me that in a
"nutted" case that you probably have to lockwire both sides, nut and screw.

Binary,

Contrary to your last post and evelrod's post, I was not peeved. Anonymous Internet sources are not necessarily sufficient evidence. However, when you come to Eng-Tips, that is
what you get. Since that didn't seem good enough for you, I thought I would provide a literature reference for you.

Regarding your applications, are you sure the lockwire prevented loosening? Did the fasteners have any preload? Would that preload have been sufficient by itself to prevent
loosening?

Wobbles asked about the problems with lockwire, so here are a few:

low torque resistance


huge operator sensitivity (is the wire tight, etc.)
reduced fastener integrity (holes! in fasteners)
slow installation time
high cost

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.

Wobbles, could you give a more complete description of some of the connections that are failing? Are the bolts being used as tension devices? Does the bolt's purpose prevent
using sufficient preload?

OBTW, I have used safety wire to retain blind bolts on race engine sump pans and valve covers. Works like a charm. No worrying about hot, oily bolts screwing up the
Loctite. Certainly the joint is not properly designed. Maybe this is where safety wire and castellated nuts and such come in handy?

CoryPad,

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I appreciate you providing the reference. I guess I communicated to you that your opinion wasn't good enough when I what I was looking for were the reasons behind the opinion
like, "I say it...because studies have shown that the stiffness of the lockwire is typically less than the torque cross radius blah, blah, blah." I was wondering about what led to your
opinion rather than just the opinion itself (which you made very clear). Anyway, I'm pleased that I didn't inadvertently offend you.

In my application, I cannot say for certain that the lockwire prevented the loosening only because we always did it. However, I must presume - given the cost and hassle of using it
- that it was implemented in response to a specific problem and that it rectified that problem otherwise why would my predecessors have adopted it in the first place?

Also, in thinking about the physics of the situation I do not see how it's physically possible for them not to prevent loosening.

The fastners certainly had some preload because they were tightened down but I don't recall that we always used torque values on everything (we did some, though).

In my judgement, there are suitable applications for lockwire, funnelguy's being an excellent example (acknowledging the drawbacks that you cited).

I felt reserved about adding to this discussion because of the perceived arrogance of some individuals, but I will add my input anyway. I have not used safety wire myself, but I
have seen it used whenever I used to work in an aircraft duct and repair shop. Here is an online reference to add to this debate:

Go to Chapter 7, Section 7, Safetying


http://av-info.faa.gov/dst/43-13/

Flores

Flores, great link!!

It clearly shows what I so ineptly tried to describe.

Thanks for the link, Flores.

Binary, I understand what you are trying to say but I am sorry that it just won't wash. I have been doing safety wire on race cars and aircraft since 1958 and have seen various
failures due to incorrect installation, that is true. I have also had correctly wired units fail due to other reasons not the least of which was failure due to loss of tension. The link
supplied by Flores is a perfect place to go. The very first paragraph on safety wire should answer your questions and solve your doubts as to the abilities of safety wire to prevent
loss of torque.

7-122. GENERAL "...These practices are not a means of obtaining or maintaining torque, rather a safety device to prevent the disengagement of screws, nuts, bolts, snap rings, oil
caps, drain cocks, valves and, parts."

CoryPad, I was just a teasin' y'all a bit. I agree with you 100%

Rod

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Mechanically, how can they disengage. It just seems physically impossible. Is it that the lockwire is just not stiff enough or that it yields or that it was just never tight enough to
begin with?

Again, I'm not arguing the conclusion, I'm just trying to understand it from more than simply an empirical viewpoint. I like to understand the "why's" behind the "what's".

Binary,

You are correct regarding stiffness and yielding. The stiffness problem is twofold - material stiffness (elastic modulus) and structure stiffness (wire diameter, path to next part).

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.

Hi,

Here is another solution, its called stage-eight locking devices. It has a positive locking system that should resist all vibration.

http://www.stage8.com/Groovelok.htm

Naturally, any bolted joint can lose some preload from thermal cycling, vibration, gasket/joint relaxation. To prevent these factors from affecting the fastener pre-load, do the
following:

- Make the length of the bolt between the nut and bolthead, which is actually under tension, as long as possible. This increases the elasticity of the bolted joint, which makes the
fastener act like a very stiff rubber band which can resist vibration and thermal loosening (you mentioned that these are in a foundry).

- Load all fasteners to 75% of their proof load.

- Minimize the number of surfaces in a joint. For example, if your bolt rests on a washer, and on the other side of the flange, the nut is also resting on a washer, then you have a
total of five surfaces sandwiched in your joint; the bolt head to washer-> the washer to flange-> the flange to flange-> the flange to washer-> and the washer to nut surface.
Solution: Purchase what are called flanged bolts, and flanged nuts(these are standard fasteners). These have a built-in washer integral with the bolthead and nut. Result: Only three
surfaces remain, which increases joint integrity, since there are less surfaces to slip/imbed.

- Increase fastener diameter to the maximum possible, as this allows a greater preload.

- Eliminate all non-metallic gaskets in the joint(if any), and if necessary, apply O-rings or soft metal gaskets instead. This allows a metal to metal joint, which greatly resists
loosening as compared to a gasketed joint with pliable gaskets.

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- If separate washers must be used, these should be of hardened steel, and have a minimum thickness of 3/16 inch, for fasteners below 1.0 inch diameter. For fasteners of greater
size than this, the minimum washer thickness should be 5/16 inch.The washer diameter should be at least 2x fastener diameter.

- The fastener outer diameter,should, as much as possible, be fitted snugly into the joint hole, if the main problem is vibration.

-Increase the thread engagement, by using nuts with a height at least equal to 1.5 x fastener OD. The increased threads spread out the preload more evenly, which reduces the
internal thread deflection, thus maintaing more thread surface area under load. The same applies for blind threaded holes.

- Confirm the flatness of all joint surfaces to be joined. Nonflat surfaces introduce bending loads in the fasteners, and reduce the actual forces holding the joint together. Same thing
goes for the surface quality of the joint surfaces; rough surfaces allow embedment, which produces a loss of preload. Misaligned flanges are another bad actor application.

- When torquing, apply antiseize under the surface of the nut or bolt head , including the threads. This increases the amount of bolt torque which actually ends up as pre-load;
otherwise much of the torque will be lost in friction. If there is a vibration problem ==> do not torque with anti-seize or oils, only use locktite style adhesives, as these will act as a
thread lubricant, and give chemical bond locking afterwards.

Abdul

How effective are tab washers in preventing vibrational loosening? I know they are ineffective against loss of clamp load? I would like to know what are the limitations of tab
washers against loosening? How do they compare with anaerobic adhesives or nord-lock washers?

Tab washers are good at preventing a nut/bolt from completely rotating (on or off) if they are design correctly to interact with surrounding pieces (e.g. frictional or direct contact
with a nearby piece). They definitely do not retain joint preload. They do not compare with adhesives/Nordlock because they perform different functions.

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.

pre-load is the key here, you really need a tensioning device to ensure correct preload/ torque has been applied, consider hydraulic tensioning systems, or if two expensive, consider
Huck bolts or Rotobolt or variations on a theme of these two.

http://www.rotabolt.co.uk/

Of course as already expressed by the engineers above, it is important that you use a bolt/screw that is man enough for the task in hand, so look at optimum bolt size, length,
minimum nuber of joint faces (components) and especially bolt grade 10.9 or 12.9 are ideally what you require for heavy fixing. A correctly specified joint and installed fastener will
not come loose.

evmundo2003

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Wobbles, I would try stepping up to a grade 8 bolt with a high pre load and see if this will handle your problem. You may want to try it out on a convenient trouble location to see if
this low cost fix will work in your situation and prior to installing solutions with higher labor and expense. Good Luck

Relevant link:

http://www.apmhexseal.com/selfseal/catalog_pdfs/apm_sf-200.pdf

On an assembly we once prepared, we spring-loaded the washers. However, what we particularly found useful was to use a right-handed spring and a left-handed thread on the
nuts and bolts so that when tightening down on the bolt, the spring would compressively pre-load. This should also be doable using a left-handed spring and right-handed fasteners,
of course.

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