Industry articles

Q2 2004
Bridgeweb: Careless Torque Makes Trouble
High strength bolts, studs, and tie rods form part of virtually all bridge designs. Many are used in critical, load-bearing bolted joints where precise, repeatable, and verifiable fastener loading is required.

Febuary 2003
Live Power News: SoCal Edison Credits Training Packages for Successful Planned Outage
Just about all industries and equipment use bolted joints. But some applications are less forgiving of possible bolt failure than others.

July 2002
Power Magazine: Tooling upgrades improve nuclear plant outages
In recent months, a number of nuclear plants have improved their outage maintenance capabilities with the purchase of new or upgraded tools from Biach Industries, Cranford, NJ.  For instance, the San Onofre station, owned by Southern California Edison Co., Rosemead, Calif, purchased helical quick disconnect stud tensioners.

April 2002
Machine Design: Tight nuts save studs
Stud tensioning continues to gain acceptance as a preferred method for tightening many critical bolted connections and closures. This is because hydraulic stud tensioners apply loads that are both accurate and repeatable.

November 2002
Power Engineering: Training Optimizes Nuclear Outage
Having the right equipment ready at the right time is just the start of planning for a safe and well executed nuclear power plant outage. Before work can begin, supervisors, crafts and temporary people must re-learn, or learn for the first time, the optimum use of the equipment used in an outage.

Febuary 2001
Machine Design: Tensioning the Critical Bolted Joint
The failure of critical bolted connections and closures often results in expensive downtime and is a costly and time-consuming problem to fix.

April 2001
Machine Design: Custom bolt tensioners take stress off users
Just about all industries and equipment use bolted joints. But some applications are less forgiving of possible bolt failure than others.

Febuary 2000
Intelligent Processing and Manufacturing of Materials Conference: Customized Hydraulic Tensioner Secures a 40-Ton Fusion Magnet
A United States engineering team led by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) recently completed design and construction of a huge, 40-ton electromagnet. The superconducting coil will be assembled with an even larger Japanese magnet to form the Central Solenoid Model Coil (CSMC). The CSMC will be the world's most powerful pulsed superconducting magnet to date.

October 1995
Power Engineering: New Tensioning Equipment saves critical path time in nuclear outage
Critical path time at Tennessee Valley Authority's (TVA) Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant is estimated at $27,000 an hour. With a Cycle 7 refueling outage on Unit 2 scheduled for fall of 1994, the station's outage planning management wanted to replace the plant's original tensioning equipment with an updated system to avoid possible delays.

June 1995
Machine Design: Hydraulic system tests hot,wet adhesives
Weight savings, more even stress distribution, and a smoother surface finish are reasons that aircraft manufacturers would like to use adhesives for primary structural bonds. But while adhesives may be strong enough under good conditions, planes require bond durability over a 30- year lifespan that includes exposure to a variety of extreme environments.

March 1994
Nuclear Enginneering: Critical-path tensioning by specialist supervison
In 1980, Nine Mile Point I was retrofitted with four quick-disconnect air-actuated tensioning systems used to open and close the main head of the reactor pressure vessel. The air-actuated system requires one worker per tensioner rather than the two required for a manually operated tensioner because of the physical labor involved.

August 1994
Offshore: Tensioning replaces torquing for swivel joint bolting
The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port's deepwater moorings and pump stations in the Gulf of Mexico service super size tankers bringing oil from the world's producing countries. From the tankers, crude oil is pumped onshore to salt dome storage facilities deep under ground, where more than 35 million bbl can be stored.

June 1993
Design News: Custom Bolt Tensioner Fits into Tight Spaces
As part of a maintenance project at the Charles Poletti Power Plant in Queens, NY, Westinghouse had to retension a number of I-I/4-inch-diameter through-bolts in the core of the plant's generator. Obstructions limited access to the bolts. Only by extensive generator disassembly, or by cutting away parts of the obstructions, could workers open up enough space for conventional bolt tightening equipment.