Fastener Reduces Risk Of Bolt Or Stud Failure
The Ecostud from Arnold Wragg is said to provide a cost-effective solution to the safety risks caused by bolts and studs losing tension in operating conditions. The Ecostud combats fastener fatigue failures and leaking joints by combining a quality fastener and an accurate tension controller within a single integral unit. With bolt or stud failure regularly identified as the cause of serious problems such as leaks in petrochemical plant, maintaining the correct level of tension in studs has the potential to save money and reduce safety risks.
The Ecostud bolt allows easy identification of studs that are losing tension and correcting them before a leak starts. The bolt can be used to replace ordinary studs during an outage. As Ecostuds are a direct replacement, only the original size, material and required pre-load needs to be specified. The Ecostud is fitted with a stainless-steel rotor, which is locked when the stud is tight, but becomes free to spin when the stud begins to lose load.
A fingertip test instantly establishes whether the stud is still tight, simply by checking if the rotor will spin. The Ecostud's accuracy is due to an integral tension gauge in its centre that directly measures the strain in the stud to an accuracy of +/-5 per cent. It does not have the large friction error that may be present in other torque control systems.
As an application example, a wind turbine blade typically has 60 retaining studs - 180 studs per generator for the blades alone. These studs are subject to high-vibration fatigue loading and must have the correct tension to avoid fatigue failure. Checking the Ecostud takes minutes, compared with the traditional method of engaging the torque wrench back onto each stud and applying the wrench 60 times for every blade.
The Ecostud bolt allows easy identification of studs that are losing tension and correcting them before a leak starts. The bolt can be used to replace ordinary studs during an outage. As Ecostuds are a direct replacement, only the original size, material and required pre-load needs to be specified. The Ecostud is fitted with a stainless-steel rotor, which is locked when the stud is tight, but becomes free to spin when the stud begins to lose load.
A fingertip test instantly establishes whether the stud is still tight, simply by checking if the rotor will spin. The Ecostud's accuracy is due to an integral tension gauge in its centre that directly measures the strain in the stud to an accuracy of +/-5 per cent. It does not have the large friction error that may be present in other torque control systems.
As an application example, a wind turbine blade typically has 60 retaining studs - 180 studs per generator for the blades alone. These studs are subject to high-vibration fatigue loading and must have the correct tension to avoid fatigue failure. Checking the Ecostud takes minutes, compared with the traditional method of engaging the torque wrench back onto each stud and applying the wrench 60 times for every blade.
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