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3/19/2024

Understanding Torque Tool Asset Management

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Large assets—such as holding tanks, heat exchangers, sawmills, dynamos, or nuclear reactors—are indispensable to many industries and government services. When a large asset fails, production facilities face significant downtime costs. If the industry provides an essential service to the community, such as a large power plant or a wastewater treatment facility, then the failure of a large asset can be detrimental to the lives of many people. 

The best way to reduce the likelihood of large asset failure is through timely and appropriate maintenance. Large assets are complex machines made of many smaller interdependent systems. The failure of smaller components within these systems can increase stress on other systems and lead to a cascading failure. So, each of these systems, down to the last fastener, must be properly cared for on a regular basis to mitigate the risk of unexpected asset downtime. For assets held together by screws, bolts, and other threaded fasteners, asset management necessitates the use of torque tools to ensure each fastener is properly tightened.


Why Torque Tools Matter in the Management of Large Assets

Whether you’re working in a closed roof manufacturing environment, a large open roof facility like an oil refinery or bulk chemical plant, or operating large equipment in the field, you depend on certain large assets to drive your business activities. While large assets are often used in parallel to each other, preventing a total shutdown of activity if one goes offline, the failure of an important piece of machinery can still create bottlenecks and significantly slow productivity. 

If a component within a large asset fails unexpectedly, it can cause damage to other components as well, creating a chain of failures. If this occurs, an issue that should have been solved during maintenance must then be corrected with repairs. Depending on how far along the damage got before the asset was shut down, these repairs can take weeks, costing the facility to suffer compounded losses from extended downtime. 

In addition, many industries that rely on large assets routinely handle hazardous materials, ranging from corrosives to flammable gases and liquids to radioactive materials. If an asset goes down in a facility working with such materials, the lives of employees, emergency responders, and even nearby civilians may be put at risk. 

For all these reasons, it’s much better to prevent breakdowns with proper maintenance than it is to repair equipment after it fails. For any assets held together with threaded fasteners—and many, if not most, are—proper maintenance demands proper torque. And applying the appropriate torque to fasteners is best achieved by using torque tools.


Choosing and Using Torque Tools in Asset Maintenance

The idea behind torque tools is simple. Apply too much torque—radial force—to a fastener, and you can break it or the materials it’s holding together. Breaking a fastener outright, actually, is often preferable; over-torqued fasteners that don’t fail right away are still much more likely to fail under stress or over time. They’ll just do it when you’re not looking. 

On the other side of the equation, if you apply too little torque to a fastener, it won’t hold its place. Under stress, it will work itself loose, then fall out entirely. When one fastener fails, every other fastener in the assembly is placed under increased stress, upping the likelihood that they will fail as well. 

Torque tools are designed to make sure that their operator delivers the right amount of torque to each fastener. When the tool detects that the right amount of torque has been delivered, it will either signal its operator or activate an automatic safety mechanism, like a clutch, to prevent more force from being applied. 

This way, operators know to turn the wrench or pull the tool’s trigger until the tool tells them to stop or stops itself. So long as the tool is set to the appropriate torque—which should be in the asset’s engineering specifications—it’s very difficult for operators to deliver anything except the appropriate amount of force. The right tool for your asset depends on a variety of factors, including the size of the fastener and the broadness of its torque tolerance. Perhaps most salient in open roof facilities, it also depends on the available means of propulsion. While electric or pneumatic screwdrivers can be fast and accurate means of delivering torque to small and large fasteners respectively, neither is useful in areas where electricity or compressed air are not readily available. 

For mobile plant operators then, the best torque tools are most likely hand tools, either click, break-over, or cam-over wrenches:
  • Click Wrenches can deliver the most torque and are the least expensive of the three options. When torque is reached, they emit an audible click to inform their operator to stop. Since they do not mechanically prevent an operator from applying too much torque, they require proper training and are best suited to less critical fasteners.
  • Break-Over Wrenches deliver less torque than click or cam-over wrenches. However, they deflect between 20 to 90 degrees when the appropriate torque is reached, effectively preventing operators from delivering too much torque.
  • Cam-Over Wrenchescan deliver large amounts of torque, though not quite as much as the basic click wrench. Cam-over wrenches are ideal for the most critical fasteners, however, because their internal clutch mechanism slips when the designated torque is reached. Operators using cam-over wrenches will be physically unable to apply too much torque to their fasteners.
To find the right wrench or set of wrenches for your assets, consult their design specifications to find the range of torque values their fasteners will require. Select wrenches capable of delivering torque in these ranges. More critical fasteners will require more specific wrenches, able to firmly prevent the operator from accidentally applying too much torque. 

Large assets drive heavy industry. When an important asset goes down, production slows or halts, and companies lose money. In hazardous environments, equipment failure can endanger the lives of personnel and civilians. Therefore, preventing asset failures comes down to proper maintenance. The only way to properly maintain equipment that relies on threaded fasteners to hold it together is to choose, and use, the right torque wrench.

 
At Mountz Inc., we work hard to provide top-quality, dependable torque tools so you never have to worry about a screw coming loose. To see our full range of torque tools, browse our catalog. Contact us anytime to ask a question. To inquire about price, request a quote. If you’d like to see our equipment in person, schedule an appointment.

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