New Technology Advances Bolted Joint Design. Ultrasonic Technology, DSP Technology, NDT Technology combined.

New DSP technology, PC technology, and ultrasonic technology combine to more reliably measure actual bolt tension, not just bolt torque. A nondestructive testing (NDT) technology. See comparison table.

Here is a new technology for an engineer, flange designer, or bolted joint designer. Verify your design. This new DSP technology helps in the following areas of bolted joint design.

NDT Update says:
" SureBolt outperformed the one-point bolt gauges on every bolt and every test in reliability and accuracy."

1.   Bolts that fail. What new technology can help engineers avoid bolt failures? Bolt experts say "lack of pre-load tension is the number one reason for bolted joint failures. But, isn't tension directly related to torque? NO! Torque is directly related to friction. What factors cause pre-load tension errors (Spiralock quote)? Can new technology help?

2.   Bolt torque = bolt tension? NO! You want tension not torque. You want to put a known amount of tension into your nut/bolt combination, not just a known amount of torque. Structural analysis calculates proper pre-load tension. SureBolt is a new technology that lets you measure pre-load tension more reliably.

3.   Measure tension errors more reliably. How can this new technology measure torque wrench tension errors? Do these bolt tension errors matter? These errors often affect a mechanical engineer's structural analysis.

4.   Use a bolt gauge. Your bolt's tension can be verified using a bolt gauge. What is an ultrasonic bolt gauge? See an animated demonstration of an ultrasonic echo inside of a bolt. Engineering labs rarely have enough resources to let each engineer learn ultrasonics. Are bolt gauges reliable? Are they easy to use? New patented technology has finally made ultrasonic bolt gauges reliable and easy to use.

5.   Friction causes 80-90% of the torque. Mechanical engineers know that bolt & nut friction consume over 80% of the torque measurement. But, how does the actual tension vary bolt to bolt? What if you use the same type of bolt?

6.   Stress, strain & yield. A stress strain curve can be plotted using SureBolt. Stress strain and yield. SureBolt's new technology can help a engineer verify his bolted joint design. Did his bolt reach yield?

7.   Flange bolts vary more. Flange joints sometimes leak. Why does the tension in a flange bolt vary so much, bolt to bolt? How can you tighten each flange bolt to closer tolerances? How can you use SureBolt on a flange?

8.   SureBolt technology. Read why NASA used SureBolt technology on Space Station. What did NASA find out? How does SureBolt differ from any other ultrasonic bolt gauge? What is the difference between a one-point bolt gage and SureBolt's patented whole echo method? Are the prices similar? (Yes)

9.   Engineers. Some engineers use a strain gauge to measure bolt tension because they know a torque wrench is not directly measuring tension.

SureBolt's Whole Echo patented technology greatly increases the reliability by using the patented whole echo method, instead of just one point.

All other bolt gages use just "One Point" (one zero crossing), that leaves you susceptible to peak jumping (20% or more error). Surebolt is a more reliable bolt gage due to this new patented technology. See comparison table.

Bolt gages have been around for over 20 years. Their "Peak Jumping" problems and difficult learning curves, have kept them from being widely used. When your bolted joint fails or flange leaks, then you find out your one-point bolt gage may have jumped peaks.

Example, with a lot of training and laboratory testing, NASA has used bolt gages for years. NASA physically takes Polaroid pictures of the echoes before and after tensioning. Then they use their trained human experience to determine if the echo has distorted "too-much". Even after all this, they have to throw away approximately one third of the ET measurements because they are not reliable. When NASA used the SureBolt prototype, no measurements had to be thrown away.

SureBolt gives you a 13.3" TFT, portable PC (Panasonic Toughbook Model 72). The ultrasonic pulser and digitizer are built into the CD ROM and PCMCIA slots. Click here to see the actual SureBolt screens. See the animated DEMO page to see how an ultrasonic bolt gauge can measure tension. SureBolt has been used on different bolts from the special high strength titanium bolts, to the standard "off the shelf" bolts.

For more information, see the main SureBolt^TM navigation screen.