The Vision - A first in bolted joint technology

James Walker RotaBolt have launched the "Vision", the world's first safety bolt to give a clear indication - visible up to 25 metres away - of loss of tension across a bolted joint

After an extensive period of development and trial, James Walker RotaBolt have launched the "Vision", the world's first safety bolt to give a clear indication - visible up to 25 metres away - of loss of tension across a bolted joint.

Maintained tension is critical to the safety of bolted joints, and unlike traditional methods of bolt tightening which do not measure tension; the Vision gives a constant and highly accurate tension measurement.

The new bolt is primarily designed to make the monitoring of joints in difficult locations very easy, improving safety regimes and making major savings in maintenance.

Sparrows Offshore, who use RotaBolt technology on many of the major bolted joints on the cranes that they are responsible for, have extensively piloted the Vision on the Marathon Oil Brae Bravo Platform.

Originally they fitted the Vision on the connecting flanges of a main A frame, and after a 12 month pilot, have now placed a further order to fit them to the booms of the East Brae cranes.

"We are very confident with the Vision," commented Chris Dixon, Sparrows UK Contracts Manager, "it has long been our maintenance strategy to fit load monitoring bolts to A Frames, slew rings, booms and winch holding bolts - any joint that we would consider to be critical.

Now, with the Vision, we can carry out a visual check of the bolts in a fraction of the time previously spent without affecting the safety integrity of the crane, which is great for us and our clients." The Vision is based on the award winning integrated technology of the original RotaBolt, but instead of a tactile indicator that requires the operator to "finger check" a special cap on the head of the bolt, the Vision has a specially developed visual indicator which appears as an unbroken yellow line across the head of the bolt.

As soon as any tension is lost, the indicator instantly rotates by ninety degrees to show a distinct right angle break in the yellow line.

The indicator can be clearly seen from up to 25 metres away, making it easy to check joints in difficult locations where access is restricted.

"The Vision brings major savings in maintenance costs and in many applications it can be a life-saver," commented Rod Corbett, managing director of James Walker RotaBolt, "we have had an intensive programme of development and we know that the Vision is set to have widespread use across a variety of industries where operators need confidence in bolted joints that are not easy to manually check." The new bolt compliments the highly successful RotaBolt, which is still finding its full potential in a wide range of applications in industries such as petro-chemical, marine and offshore, rail and transport, nuclear, mining, structural engineering, environment and defence - all industries where bolted joint safety is of paramount importance.

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