SMARTER BOLTS

At the bleeding edge of innovation, it’s not just tools that are becoming more connected and transferring data to improve their operation for end users… Nord-Lock Group takes us through its innovative LST

The Superbolt LST (Load-Sensing Tensioner) is Nord-Lock Group’s step into smart products, upgrading an established and popular safety product to become ever more practical and useful for its customers.

Nord-Lock Group CEO Fredrik Meuller takes Torque Magazine through the innovative new product:

“We launched the LST (Load-Sensing Tensioner) around a year ago but it’s now really taking off. We get fantastic feedback from the pilot projects and end users.

“It is a development for our Superbolt multi-jackbolt tensioning (MJT) technology. If you consider bolts on the foundation of a wind tower, you have several bolts that need fastening and torquing. That is labour intensive.

“It is one thing to deploy that on a wind tower for the first time, but when on a regular basis you need to maintain those bolts and ensure they are really tightened – and typically wind towers are off-shore – then you understand it is time and cost-intensive.

“So, we have applied sensors that measure the actual tensioning of these MJT bolts in real time. The system indicates tension and this data is transferred up into the cloud. Then, from a remote location you can see whether you need to go out there and retighten them.

The Superbolt LST (Load-Sensing Tensioner) is Nord-Lock’s step into smart products.

“If you have something like that for a wind farm in the North Sea, then it is a really fantastic innovation. End users can schedule maintenance in a totally different way. You can look at the screen and say, you know what, we don’t need to go out there on a boat this month, we can wait another month because the lights are green… so through this we save a lot of time and money for the end users.

“The interesting thing for us at Nord-Lock Group is that all of a sudden we have a different business model. We are no longer selling a product, we are selling uptime. That is great for us and also for the end user. It’s very exciting and just one example of what has been done with our award-winning R&D.”