Safety by Design Includes Fasteners

How Fasteners and Industrial Hardware can help you Design in Safety

Industrial Fasteners and hardware products like Accuride Drawer Slides and Econoloc Gas Struts from Camloc can help you achieve your Safety by Design goals. They can improve safety not only in the finished product but in the manufacturing process as well.

 

Shake Rattle and Roll

Movement and vibration present challenges in almost every application from machinery to automotive. When components move the fasteners holding them together can become loose and fall out. This is a potential hazard.

We solve this problem through our range of anti-vibration Lock Nuts and Locking Washers. They stop nuts from loosening from vibration or dynamic load.

Palnut Regular Lock Nuts are a popular and cost effective solution. The unit cost is low and they are quick and easy to use. The operative turns the Lock Nut to finger tight then uses a spanner to tighten them a further third to half a turn so no need for a torque wrench. You can see the Lock Nut has been properly tightened because the hex face becomes slightly concave. Palnuts work by pushing the teeth of the thread form down the thread helix. This results in the ends of the teeth biting into the root of the thread on the bolt.

 

Nord-Lock Washers are an alternative to Lock Nuts and work in a different way, using tension rather than friction. Each washer comes as a pair and you use them with a conventional bolt. The outer surface has serrations that dig in to the lower surface of the bolt and the mating surface. The mating surfaces of the washers have cams. Because the angle of the cam is greater than the helix angle of the thread of the bolt, when you tighten the bolt you create a wedge effect. An excellent Safety by Design feature.

 

Anti-vibration solutions for all seasons

Nord-Lock Washers have a high level of corrosion resistance. You can specify Palnut Regular Lock Nuts with a Hot Dip Galvanised finish that offers corrosion resistance up to 1,000 hours of salt spray. Our customers use Lock Nuts and Locking washers in applications across a huge range of sectors. One of our customers uses Nord-Lock washers in the assembly of electricity pylons, where of course safety is hugely important.

 

Do you have a nut loose?

When the challenges of maintaining machinery first arose in the 1700s, any machine that developed a fault was described as having a screw loose. Loose fasteners are still an issue. Bolts that drop out of machinery can injure people and cause damage so they are a real safety risk. So how do you secure fasteners, especially ones that are frequently loosened and tightened?

We have customers from heavy industry to campervan builders who use our Bi-Fix Quarter Turn Fasteners. They are useful anywhere that panels or doors need to be opened or removed regularly for maintenance. People like them because they are easy to use and they can’t fall out of the panel and cause damage or injury.

 

The main types are Quarter Turn Dome Head Studs, Quarter Turn Wing Head Studs and Quarter Turn Knurled Head Studs. They all need nothing more than a quarter turn to open or close them. You can release a Wing Head Stud and a Knurled Head Stud by hand. Both the Knurled Head Stud and the Dome Head Stud have a slot so you can open them with a flat blade screwdriver.

A Bi-Fix Quarter Turn Fastener is made up of 3 parts. You install the Spring Clip permanently in the framework. It’s the spring that ejects the stud. The stud stays captive in the panel which is being removed by means of a washer. The washer also reduces vibration when everything is in the assembled or closed position

You can use Push Nut Bolt Retainers to prevent a bolt falling out of the application during the assembly process. They slide down the thread and hold firmly at any point. When you install the panel or component they stay in place which saves costly time during the assembly process. The teeth fold flat so they add very little extra thickness to the final assembly.

 

Road Safety by Design

There are any number of safety risks around cables and hoses in vehicles. We have customers ranging from engine manufacturers to luxury car makers who use our Cable and Hose Management Solutions to help keep cables related to safety systems in good working order.

 

Hoses carry flammable fuel, brake fluid or hydraulic fluid - all essential for safety in vehicles. Even a damaged windscreen washer hose can make you less safe behind the wheel.

The main problems result from vibration that can dislodge cables and hoses or cause chaffing. It’s not hard to imagine the risks that stem from bare electrical cables in a vehicle or fuel spilling onto hot engine parts.

To deal with chaffing, you can specify JET PRESS Cable or Pipe Clips with flared edges that reduce the chance of damage when cables or hoses rub against them.

 

Vehicles in the future

The good news about EVs (Electric Vehicles) is that they don’t vibrate as much as fossil fuel vehicles. But voltages in EVs will leap from 12V AC to 440V DC or higher. These potentially lethal voltages also generate considerable heat. And LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) systems in AV’s (Autonomous Vehicles) will involve a lot of cabling

Fortunately, JET PRESS stocks a huge range of cable and hose clips. We also have a great deal of experience solving design issues in cable and hose management in vehicles and beyond. Our team is always happy to discuss the options available to you. We’ll work with you to find the best possible Safety by Design solution.

 

A safer world of work

According to the UK’s Health and Safety Executive, there are well over half a million workers injured each year leading to an estimated 4.7 million working days lost. Here are a few ways that designing in safety with the right component can help prevent accidents.

You often have to lift a cover to maintain equipment, like lifting the bonnet of your car. Gas Struts (sometimes called Gas Springs or Gas shocks) help operatives lift the cover and to keep the cover up. You need an additional safety rod in case the Gas Strut fails.

All gas struts add to safety by making lifting heavy covers easier. But as well as providing lift assistance Econoloc Gas Struts have an automatically engaging locking shroud so the operative cannot forget the safety rod. When the strut is fully extended the spring-loaded shroud moves into place preventing the gas spring from compressing.  Another Safety by Design feature. You can combine an Econoloc Gas strut with a Swift and Sure Gas Strut for a more cost-effective solution.

If you have a cabinet with drawers containing heavy items, opening more than one drawer at a time can be dangerous. The cabinet could topple over and injure someone. The Accuride Drawer Slide 5343 has an interlock system that makes sure you can only open one drawer at a time. Drawers are increasingly used in specialist vehicles and an interlock system means the vehicle can’t become dangerously unbalanced.

You can combine the Accuride 5343 with the Accuride 5344 (companion slide) on drawers up to 800mm wide. An optional locking kit is also available.

Any manufacturing fault is a potential safety issue. That’s why quality control is so important. If you use different colours for similar parts it’s easy to spot the wrong one. This applies if the inspection is done by humans or robots. We supply a range of parts in varying colours to help with error prevention and detection - from yellow zinc plated T-Nuts in furniture to coloured Hose Bands in vehicles.

 

 

Safety by Design

There are many ways to improve safety by using the right fasteners or components. We work with a wide range of customers to help them design safety into finished products and manufacturing processes. You can see the range of fasteners and components available on our website.

If you would like to tap into the experience and expertise of our team in Safety by Design issues please call +44 1623 551 800, email [email protected] or use our online enquiry form.