Why traditional fastener designs may not work Over the last two decades – especially with the advent of heavy batteries in the automotive industry – the race for lightweight and high-performance composite assemblies has taken center stage. These assemblies, typically made from composites like carbon fiber and CFRP have become
When it comes to mechanical fastening, engineers often focus on bolt strength—after all, it’s doing the heavy lifting, right? But there’s more to the story. In a bolted joint, the relationship between bolt grade and nut grade plays a critical role in the strength, safety, and serviceability of the assembly.
Choosing the right bolt means knowing how it fails—and when it bends too far to bounce back When designing or specifying fasteners, strength is everything—but not all strength is created equal. Two key properties—yield strength and tensile strength—tell very different stories about how a bolt behaves under load. If misunderstood,
At CFI, we engineer custom screws nuts and bolts every day. One of the methods we use is called Cold Heading or Cold Forming. To answer the basic question, there is no difference between cold forming and cold heading, so the terms are truly interchangeable. The real difference is between
When you learn about the components industry, you can truly get into the weeds about the different types of threads. Here is a complete breakdown of the most commonly used thread types. While the most common types of threads are straight threads and tapered threads, there are several other types
Today, everything in life must be dual function. Think of the phone in your hand. At one point, a phone was only a phone – meant for keeping in touch with a far-off friend or family member and nothing more. Today, it’s more used as an internet consumption device than
We’ve all seen it in our personal lives – whether a bolt coming loose on a car, or a piece of furniture or cabinet that has a loose bolt despite you tightening it multiple times. How can you combat this inconvenience? Well, there are actually a large amount of options
How the type of thread can completely change the characteristics of fasteners When the average person looks at a box of bolts or screws, they don’t think much past the basic size of the screw, or, if it will be exposed, maybe the color of the metal. But in the
Over the past decade, plastics and forms of nylon are quickly replacing their ferrous counterparts as the material of choice under the hood of cars and trucks all over the world. How can this be? Conventional wisdom would tell you that the high temperature and high stress environment of an
