Fasteners: Strength and Quality Requirements

Heavy hex nuts may be selected with similar hardness to the studs to avoid stripping of nut threads for pressure containing (closure bolting) and primary load bearing bolting. However, industry specification for subsea production systems, e.g. such as API Specifications 6A, 16A, 16C, and 17D, allows the use of low strength heavy hex nuts, e.g. ASTM A194 Grade 2HM or 7M, to be applied together with high strength studs, e.g. ASTM A320 Grades L43 or L7. In the refining and chemical industries the common practice is to use ASTM A193 B7 studs with 2H nuts. Calculations and testing of nuts have been performed and capacity formulas have been established for nut structural capacities. Guidance is given on selecting nut strength/hardness to avoid stripping of nut threads. ASTM specifications give minimum quality requirements during manufacture. A brief review of standard quality requirements is given and guidance for additional requirements for high integrity fasteners in order to have equivalent quality as pressure containing forgings is given. The results from this paper may be used as background for requirements in code updates and purchaser specifications.