Abstract:

Eliminating Critical Bolting Failures: New Maintenance Strategies, Technologies, and Industrial IoT Applications

Industrial IoT (internet of things) is here, and it is successfully being used on a large scale to improve maintenance and assembly strategies in order to significantly reduce unscheduled downtime related to bolting issues.

Maintenance professionals are responsible for hundreds of critical bolting applications across extraction, grinding, and refinement equipment. The extreme conditions inherent to these processes often result in unscheduled downtime due to bolt breakage and related failures. The root cause is often the inability to achieve and maintain proper bolt tension, leading to loose bolts that fail under repeated loading.

Traditional maintenance and assembly approaches rely on theoretical torque values to achieve approximate bolt tension, overlooking real-world variables and resulting in bolt relaxation after installation. This longstanding method has proven insufficient in mitigating failures in dynamic and harsh environments.

Advancements in Industrial IoT and real-time bolt tension monitoring technologies now allow for precise measurement during installation and operation, even in extreme conditions like grinding mills and crushers. While these technologies provide invaluable data, the real transformation lies in developing and implementing innovative bolting strategies—often counterintuitive and requiring significant shifts in traditional practices.

This presentation will provide a concise introduction to the challenges of fatigue failures and explore specific case studies from mining sites across six continents. The applications will include SAG mills, crushers, and screens and will highlight successful data-based strategies used by maintenance and assembly crews for reducing or eliminating bolting failures. Additionally, we’ll discuss the broader potential of Industrial IoT in load monitoring fasteners and other commonly used instrumentation to enhance predictive maintenance practices, increase safety and optimize efficiency.

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Mr. Cory Waxman