What better place to start than in the heart of the sensing technology and its performance.
Measuring bolt load accurately is the most important aspect of any load monitoring technology and it is a huge challenge from both electronics and mechanical perspectives.
InterBolt features an embedded bolt load sensor with the industry’s highest accuracy of 97%.
- Outputs bolt load in the standard SI unit of kN.
- Each InterBolt is calibrated over its full load range and full temperature range, against an ultra-high precision reference load technology which is directly traceable to a UKAS approved test house.
- Each InterBolt is supplied with a calibration certificate and the sensor does not need to be recalibrated throughout its lifetime.
- The sensing element is miniature in size
- The sensor accuracy is not impacted by changes in effective length
- Other technologies do not directly measure bolt load and instead output an elongation or other metric that relies on several assumptions to calculate bolt load.
- The accuracy of other technologies is impacted by temperature, changes in effective length and operating time.
- Some systems require on-site calibration or recalibration after several years in the field.
- Mechanical indicating bolts only typically detect loose bolts (can't measure bolts that are too tight).
- The sensor technology is embedded in the bolt and has to be done at our manufacturing facility (i.e. InterBolt technology cannot be added to an already installed bolt). Other technologies, such as UT, can offer some level of accuracy on already installed bolts.
- Capex cost. Embedded bolt load sensors are cheaper than load washers but are typically more expensive than UT or mechanical indicating bolts. However, embedded bolt load sensors such as InterBolt eliminate the need for periodic bolt inspection so can significantly reduce OPEX costs unlike the aforementioned technologies. InterBolt often pays for itself within a few months of being installed.
