EuroFasteners September 2023

ISSN: 2633-9706 print

ISSN: 2633-9714 online Photo by FLY:D, Unsplash

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Get your company noticed in the magazine for WIRE Düsseldorf – contact Linda Li – 李書紅

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Jason Smith sales & marketing – International (English speaking) Tel: +44 1926 834684 Email: jason@intras.co.uk

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sales & marketing – Far East (Chinese & English speaking) Tel: +44 1926 834685 Email: linda@intras.co.uk

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Contents September 2023

Diary of events

2-4 September 2023 wire Middle East Africa Trade exhibition Cairo, Egypt Organisers: Messe Düsseldorf GmbH www.wire-mea.com

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Corporate News

Products

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4-7 September 2023 wire China Trade exhibition Shanghai, China Organisers: Shanghai Electric Cable Research Institute Co Ltd Messe Düsseldorf Shanghai Co Ltd www.wirechina.net

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17-20 September 2023 IWCS

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Cable & Connectivity Industry Forum Trade exhibition & Technical Symposium Orlando, Florida, USA Organisers: IWCS www.iwcs.org

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18-23 September 2023 EMO-Hannover Trade exhibition Hanover, Germany Organisers: Deutsche Messe www.emo.hannover.de

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20-22 September 2023 wire Southeast Asia Trade exhibition Bangkok, Thailand Organisers: Messe Düsseldorf Asia www.wire-southeastasia.com 3-5 October 2023 wire South America Trade exhibition São Paulo, Brazil Organisers: Fiera Milano Brasil https://wiresa.com.br

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Shows correct at time of publication, please check to ensure the event is going ahead

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September 2023

High quality print advertising works THE Power of Print

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Linda Li Wire/Tube China, Taiwan & Hong Kong Email: linda@intras.co.uk Tel: +44 1926 834685

Jason Smith Wire/Tube Rest of World Email: jason@intras.co.uk Tel: +44 1926 834684

Here to serve the industries we helped to shape

Corporate News

Design award for flexible nutrunner Atlas Copco has been awarded a Red Dot Design Award for the design of a handheld nutrunner – the ITB-P tensor battery smart pistol tool, used in the assembly of electric vehicles and aircraft. Red Dot Award-winning products need to be aesthetically appealing, functional, smart or innovative and display outstanding design. The Red Dot jury stated that the ITB-P “successfully integrates aesthetic aspects into a tool that is excellently geared to practical requirements.” Atlas Copco’s Henrik Elmin – business area president, industrial technique division, commented, “I am very proud that we have once again been awarded this distinguished design recognition. I would like to thank the entire project, product and R&D team who made this possible. They continue to push the technological limits, whilst managing to keep in mind the operators who will be using our tools around the world.” The ITB-P was developed and designed for manufacturers of electric vehicles and aircraft needing a nutrunner for their most challenging applications, such as during the assembly of car doors or aircraft structures, when there is a need for high accuracy, traceability and optimum ergonomics to secure a critical joint. The cordless and lightweight ITB-P is fast, flexible and accurate, and packaged in an operator-friendly design.

Atlas Copco’s ITB-P tool

“This award is an acknowledgment of our commitment to always providing the best possible solutions for our customers through combining design, technology and function in our tools for industrial manufacturing,” said Mr Elmin. Atlas Copco AB www.atlascopcogroup.com

“Haute couture” springs for the fashion industry Haute couture is the pinnacle of fashion, developing high-end custom designs – not an industry usually associated with springs. However, Lesjöfors has created its own “haute couture” spring for a global fashion brand. “Since we already had a good relationship with Lesjöfors Industrifjädrar, we turned to the Herrljunga unit with the challenging request.” compression spring in the requested dimension. The project proved our operators’ and technical salespeople’s deep competence and ability to think outside the box.”

Upon assessing the drawings, the technicians believed that the com- pression spring requirements were too large for the facility’s machines, and considered migrating the project to another of the Lesjöfors Group’s 55+ manufacturing sites (overall, the group can coil wire from 0.3 to 65mm diameter). However, a determination to keep the project local, to deepen the relationship between the key sub-contractor site and its customer, saw the technicians expand the parameters of the wire coiling facilities. Christian Olsson, technical manager at Lesjöfors Industrifjädrar, commented, “Thanks to a deep knowledge of the capacity level of our manufacturing machines and a strong design foun- dation by our designers, we were able to stretch our machines’ boundaries to find a new way to manufacture the

Multiple volumes of the new spring have been ordered and the fashion industry now features springs as part of its logistics management. Mr Ignell concluded, “We have continuous deliveries of the trolleys to the customer and we also provide the model to other customers in this seg ment. We will definitely turn to Lesjöfors again when we need spring expertise.” Lesjöfors AB www.lesjoforsab.com

In a development project for Swedish truck and trolley manufacturer Helge Nyberg, Lesjöfors Industrifjädrar in Herrljunga, Sweden, pushed the bounda ries of its coiling wire diameters for the design of a step trolley with a “springy shelf”. Having supplied stock springs for Helge Nyberg’s standard-range products, the Herrljunga-based manufacturing site of the Lesjöfors Group has been a supplier of lifetime-guaranteed springs for decades. The requirements of the fashion house demanded a new level of bespoke component supply for the newly commissioned and customised trolley. Helge Nyberg’s R&D manager, Patrik Ignell, explained, “Our customer required a trolley with a loading shelf that automatically lowered when loading.

Lesjöfors springs are used to lower the trolley’s loading shelf

Graphics bigstockphoto.com/Artist tereh

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Corporate News

Commercial Metals Company acquires EDSCO Fasteners

transmission capacity and wind power installations.” CMC and its subsidiaries manufacture, recycle and fabricate steel and metal products and provide related materials and services through a network of facilities that includes seven electric arc furnace (EAF) mini mills, three EAF micro mills, one re-rolling mill, steel fabrication and processing plants, construction related product warehouses, and metal recycling facilities in the USA and Poland. Commercial Metals Company www.cmc.com

North Carolina. Since its founding in 1985, EDSCO has grown into a major provider of anchor cages for concrete reinforcement. “This acquisition further advances CMC’s leadership position in construction reinforcement and extends our capa- bilities to new and growing applications,” said Barbara R Smith, chairman of the board and chief executive officer. “EDSCO’s innovative reinforcement solutions are well positioned to benefit from the long-term transition to renewable energy, which will require extensive investment in electrical

Commercial Metals Company (CMC) has announced the purchase of EDSCO Fasteners LLC, a provider of anchoring solutions for the electrical transmission market, from MiddleGround Capital. anchor cages, bolts and fasteners are manu- factured principally from rebar and used primarily to secure high voltage electrical transmission poles to concrete foundations. The company serves the North American market from four manufacturing plants located in Texas, Utah, Tennessee and EDSCO’s custom-engineered

Aerospace fastener manufacturer adds VisionLab A major aerospace fastener manufac turer in Pennsylvania, USA, has inte- grated General Inspection’s VisionLab 3D measuring system into its manufac turing process to streamline first-part inspections. measured and displayed with a pass or fail indication. The system accurately measured parts within two microns.

Part feature tolerances are assigned with the appropriate part number and stored in memory for quick recall. The VisionLab 3D gauging system can perform complete inspection in less than five seconds. It can carry out up to 360° profile measurements, and features built-in self calibration. General Inspection, LLC https://geninsp.com achieve that, the purchaser must have a basic knowledge in spring technology. The training was a win-win for both parts.” Martin Keernik, team leader at Alas-Kuul, was happy with the outcome of the training, which not only deepened the knowledge and relationship between purchasers and technicians, but also led to another training session on gas springs, to be delivered before the summer break. Lesjöfors AB www.lesjoforsab.com

VisionLab measures the company’s full range of threaded fasteners, reducing inspection times and improving quality. The easy-to-use 3D gauging system can replace multiple manual gauges, such as micrometers, calipers and optical comparators, which are subject to human error. In a few seconds, all dimensions (including lengths, diameters, radii, angles and GD&T features) are

VisionLab is used to inspect aerospace fasteners

Spring knowledge advanced with training day Lesjöfors’ Finnish company has provided a spring training day in Estonia, aimed at giving customers greater knowledge of spring technology.

Lesjöfors group, led the participants through different modules, such as the characteristics of different spring types, calculations and the importance of correct design drawings. The Alas-Kuul team was also provided with a manual of essential spring data, which they could share with their customers to provide the best product solutions. The initiative for the training came from Janne Salminen, technical sales at Lesjöfors Springs Oy, who commented, “It is much easier for us to deliver the optimal spring to the customer if we have accurately designed drawings. To

The company Alas-Kuul is a customer of Lesjöfors Springs Oy (Finland), and serves Estonia and Latvia with a wide product range, from electric motors and welding gear to compressed air equipment and vacuum pumps. Lesjöfors held a training day for ten employees at Alas-Kuul’s head office in Tallinn, Estonia. Stefan Musslinder, group development manager for spring technology in the

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Products

Efficient and sustainable parts cleaning for precision and high-purity applications

The cleanliness requirements for high-tech components are becoming stricter and more demanding in numerous branches of industry, whether for millimetre-small fasteners, complex precision optics or metre-sized machinery parts. Many conventional cleaning systems are unable to achieve the results required to ensure consistent product quality. Ecoclean has been supplying solutions for precision and high-purity cleaning applications for many years, and is driving forward the development of cleaning systems, technologies and processes for this sector, including specially designed feature packages. Demands on the performance and reliability of components and parts continue to rise, particularly in sectors such as the semiconductor supply industry, optical and optoelectronic industry, thin-film technology, and vacuum, laser and analysis technologies, as well as the medical device industry. This has an impact on parts cleaning. With new developments in wafer steppers and scanners for EUV lithography, for example, mechanical components are not only becoming more complex in shape but also heavier and larger. The diameters of these workpieces can be anything from one millimetre to more than one metre. The diversity of materials used is also rising, and specifications regarding particulate, film-type chemical, organic and inorganic cleanliness are becoming increasingly stringent. The situation is similar for vacuum components used in UHV, XHV and UCV applications, such as those for high-power laser systems or high-tech measuring and analysis equipment. In the case of precision optics such as mirrors, lenses, prisms and micro-optical parts, more complex geometries and modified materials are also presenting new and challenging cleaning tasks. In coating technology, efficient processes call for exceptionally clean surfaces, regardless of whether parts such as machine tooling, automotive components and optical products are cleaned before or after coating. For parts cleaning, this results in demanding tasks that span the entire manufacturing process. The cleanliness requirements vary depending on the product, area of application and company concerned. Generally, particulate cleanliness specifications – which extend into the nanometre range for precision and high purity applications – are defined by surface cleanliness classes (SCC). The specifications for the required film-type chemical, organic and inorganic surface cleanliness are usually based on individual specifications or factory standards, for example outgassing rates, which are evaluated by mass spectrometry. To solve these tasks in a needs-based, efficient and sustainable manner requires not only comprehensive technological know how, but also knowledge of the applications and respective

Multi-bath ultrasonic cleaning system

physical relationships. As a full-service provider of future oriented solutions for precision and high-purity cleaning, Ecoclean states that it has both. This ensures cleaning solutions designed and equipped to meet requirements, enabling defined cleanliness specifications up to the highest current requirements (for example Grade 1) to be consistently achieved. Key criteria for selecting the most suitable cleaning process and plant technology are the required level of cleanliness, the type of contamination to be removed, and the material and geometry of the respective component. Based on this, it is possible to determine which and how many process steps are necessary with which cleaning medium and which mechanics. Aspects such as the quality of the rinsing medium and the drying technology are included in this consideration, as are cleanliness-compliant parts handling and the prevailing environmental conditions, for example connection or integration into a cleanroom. Which system concept to use, in terms of cleanliness and cost effectiveness, is determined via cleaning trials with original components or test specimens. Ecoclean has high purity test centres for this purpose. As a result, product-specific cleaning processes and process parameters can be developed and stored as programs in the system controller. This ensures that each part is cleaned with the validated process parameters to achieve the required level of cleanliness in a consistent and reproducible manner. All relevant process parameters can be monitored, documented and transferred to higher-level systems. Ecoclean GmbH www.ecoclean-group.net

Graphics bigstockphoto.com/Artistnd 3000

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Products

Hydromechanical spring clamping nuts

A joint press release detailed how “the alignment and quick connection of the tower was successfully performed with- out any personnel below the suspended load. The C1 Wedge Connection features pre-installed fasteners, and only light- weight tools are needed to finalise the connection.” The technology is DNV certified, as C1 Connections demonstrated that the connection works, has tested fatigue and ultimate capacity, and can be built full scale for large wind farms. Nord-Lock Group met C1 Connections with a common goal to simplify bolting assemblies, protect workers and build more robust applications. Christophe Cuypers, Nord-Lock Group tensioning key account manager, said, “I am extremely pleased that Nord-Lock Group can support this innovation with the design and testing of custom Boltight hydraulic tensioners – used to accurately pre-tension the C1 Wedge Connection.” Nord-Lock Group www.nord-lock.com pressure. This means that as the spring pack is compressed with increasing oil pressure, the spring force increases. At set pressure, the corresponding nominal clamping force is achieved as the reaction force of the plate spring package. To release the pressure or tension piston requires a higher hydraulic pressure that is proportional to the release stroke, up to a maximum value. The setting pressure is therefore only required for the initial installation, for exact force adjustment. In the actual operating cycle, the cylinders are driven either without pressure or with release pressure. For spring-loaded cylinders, a mandrel or tie rod is screwed into the threaded hole of the tensioning piston and secured (on request, in one piece or with special thread). Operation requires a hydraulic unit equipped with a pressure gauge, a pressure relief valve, a switching solenoid valve and a pressure switching device. Jakob Antriebstechnik GmbH www.jakobantriebstechnik.de

stressed plate spring package. The hydraulics are only needed for the release stroke of the elements, when the tie rod or pressure pin is released. This system ensures a high level of operational safety, since the clamping force is always maintained at full height, regardless of oil pressure or leakage losses. In operation, the pressure or tension piston is alternately acted upon by the plate spring package or the hydraulic

The spring-loaded cylinders of the ZSF series from Jakob Antriebstechnik offer robust and reliable clamping elements. The systems can be used wherever displaceable or movable machine parts must be temporarily clamped or locked. Other applications can be found in jig construction and for workpiece or tool clamping. The spring-loaded systems interact mechanically-hydraulically. The clamping force is applied mechanically by a pre hydromechanical

ZSF spring-loaded cylinders

A sea change for offshore installations To harness the power of wind, inno- vations from smaller specialist partners can enable faster, safer turbine by C1 Connections BV, is a fastening technology that can deliver the high capacity needed for this new generation of wind turbines.

installations and service. Nord-Lock Group, C1 Connections BV and Heerema Marine Contractors have collaborated on a new breakthrough. As wind turbines get larger, and are located in increasingly harsh environ- ments or on floating platforms, con- ventional bolted L-flange connections, which are complex to design, install and maintain, are reaching their limits. The C1 Wedge Connection™, developed

Turbine towers can be aligned to the foundations without personnel. The C1 Wedge Connection features a remotely actuated quick connection for a fast and safe release from the crane hook, after which operators can enter safely, push in the fasteners and apply the final preload using handheld Boltight™ hydraulic tensioners.

While traditional L-flange connections are exposed to sea corrosion, the C1 Wedge Connection is designed so that the most critical parts stay dry, mitigating corrosion. During an offshore test with Heerema Marine Contractors, C1 Connections demonstrated that its solution enables a safe disconnection of the tower from a grillage on a barge.

Boltight hydraulic tensioners

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September 2023

Products

VisionLab installed at major bolt manufacturer in India

and cut down on calibration costs by replacing multiple manual gauges, such as micrometers, calipers and optical comparators, which are subject to human error. Visionlab rapidly completes first-piece inspections, allowing employees to concentrate on production tasks instead of manually measuring parts. Production has increased; errors have been eliminated; and the company is able to measure more frequently. All dimensions, including lengths, diameters, radii, angles and GD&T features, are measured and displayed with a pass/fail indication. Custom data reports can be created and saved as CSV or Excel files, and in

One of the largest automotive bolt manufacturers in India has added a VisionLab 3D fastener gauging system from General Inspection to streamline its first-part inspection process. VisionLab uses General Inspection’s patented 3D gauging technology to provide complete part dimensional layouts in less than five seconds. The machine can perform 360° dimensional inspection with detailed data reporting, plus options to provide 360° visual defect detection, end view inspection, and measure recess depth and recess concentricity. The bolt manufacturer’s aim was to reduce inspection time, improve quality

The VisionLab-150 can handle parts up to 150mm length and 50mm diameter

this case the customer is utilising the “MySequel” built-in server to connect directly to its SPC program. Part feature tolerances are assigned with the appropriate part number and stored in memory for quick recall. General Inspection, LLC https://geninsp.com

Most powerful battery-powered torque wrench launched

designed and engineered the B-RAD X from scratch, offering users an exceptional industrial torque tool that excels in handling the most substantial bolting tasks worldwide, all without the need for cables.” The B-RAD Xtreme has two patents pending in the USA – one for mechanical technology and one for electronic technology.

RAD Torque Systems has launched B-RAD X (Xtreme), a battery powered torque wrench series capable of torquing up to 15,000 Nm (11,000 ft lb), which it claims is the most powerful cordless torque wrench in the world. The new B-RAD X torque wrench is available in three versions: 7,000 Nm (5,000 ft lb), 10,000 Nm (8,000 ft lb) and 15,000 Nm (11,000 ft lb). Fastening bolts in remote locations will now be easier, as the cordless B-RAD X gives companies better mobility to torque and tension large bolts with less equipment to haul, but without compromising power or accuracy. “We believe the B-RAD X is going to revolutionise the industry and change how big industry works,” says Dan Provost, president and owner of RAD Torque Systems. “This tool will make the toughest torque jobs easier to tackle, faster to secure and safer for all operators. RAD Torque is known for its innovation, and we are proud to be the first in the world to deliver a battery-powered torque tool with this much power.” Building on RAD Torque’s patented gearbox technology, the B-RAD X features a new high-performance motor. Additional features include brushless DC motor for added durability and accuracy; redesigned anti-fatigue trigger switch with IP rating; standard hand-guard for added operator protection; two-hand start options to prevent hand injuries; a battery latch lock to protect batteries from falling; and a digital screen. Luke Timmermans, senior engineer at RAD Torque Systems, said, “The B-RAD X was developed in response to the demands of our customers who required increased portability and higher performance in a torque wrench. We have meticulously

RAD Torque Systems www.radtorque.com

B-RAD Xtreme battery-powered torque wrench

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September 2023