What Are the Different Types of Lock Nuts?
Across a myriad of industries, secure and reliable fasteners are essential to ensure the smooth operation of equipment. With various types of fasteners on the market, from metal screws to strips of tape, it can be hard to understand what each style has to offer, making the decision of which fastener to choose all the more challenging. For your better knowledge, this blog will offer a comprehensive overview of one fastener type in particular: the locking nut.
Also referred to as locknuts,
self-locking nuts, or stiffnuts, these fasteners function similarly to classic nuts in that they are screwed into a bolt or threaded rod. However, unlike the basic nut design, a lock nut is resistant to loosening under torque or vibrational forces once it has been secured.
This prevents the need for additional parts, as two nuts were formerly used with one bolt to provide additional security. In turn, this lowers costs and can generate ample cost savings in applications where great amounts of fasteners are needed.
Lock nuts can be further broken down into categories based on their designs and functions, with two overarching subgroups of prevailing torque nuts and surface bearing lock nuts. The former category gets its name from the principle of prevailing torque. So long as the torque force acting against the locknut is not greater than the torque acting to secure the nut, it will not loosen.
This can be observed in designs such as conical lock nuts, tri-lock nuts, top locks, Stover lock nuts, and Griptite nuts. These styles often have a lip or crown designed to be crimped around the bolt shaft to produce prevailing torque.
Meanwhile, surface
bearing lock nuts spin freely in a normal circumstance, but can be tightened against a surface to activate a locking mechanism. These designs include top lock nuts, jet nuts, castle-lock nuts, and more. One common example is the nylon insert lock nut which features an inner sleeve that molds to the threading pattern. Another is the hex jam nut which contains two nuts that can be tightened against one another.
Distorted thread nuts like centre lock nuts and serrated flange lock nuts rely on nut threading that is deliberately designed to interfere with, and ultimately bind against, the bolt threading.
Depending on your specific application, there are a few factors to consider when deciding which lock nut style to purchase. First, you should determine whether you require a nut that fits with clockwise or counter-clockwise threading. Next, you should consider the size and material of the nuts to ensure safe and proper functioning in your assembly’s conditions.
Furthermore, you should consider any additional conditions that might affect your lock nut over the course of its life. Lastly, it is important to consider any additional parts your lock nut requires to function.
Once you have a specific lock nut in mind for purchase, visit ASAP Sourcing Solutions, an ASAP Semiconductor owned and operated online purchasing platform. With access to an inventory of over 2 billion new, used, obsolete, and hard-to-find items from trusted manufacturers around the world, we are your one stop shop for aircraft fasteners,
bearing parts, and so much more.
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mark watkins
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Posted on August 17, 2022
fasteners part types