Major rail freight companies rely on their equipment and vehicles to transport heavy loads over long distances, sometimes thousands of kilometers in extreme environments and conditions. Given these very difficult conditions, some of our customers have experienced loosening on critical assemblies. The perfect example is the splice joint bar with a set of different elements, screws, nut against nut, washer, drilling of the screw and pin. There could be several points of failure due to the enormous pressure exerted on these fasteners.
Having many parts is not a guarantee of safety. In many cases, longer screws will have to be purchased, which increases the cost of expenses. In order to solve their problem, we have delivered our customer an option with a better cost/benefit ratio: our THU self-locking nuts that you can see in the illustration in 1” and 1”1/8.
These full height self-locking nuts, have two slots on the same level, allowing them to withstand high vibrations, heavy loads and extreme temperatures. From the first installation of the THU nuts in December 2017 until February 2019 there was no loosening, even in extreme conditions and temperatures of -14°C.
The benefits for our customers with our THU self-locking nut were immediate: