Video: Valley Forge Talks Compression-Based Load-Indicating Fasteners

Turbomachinery International interviewed James Brooks, Director of Engineering at Valley Forge & Bolts, who showcased the company's new compression-based load-indicating fasteners at POWERGEN 2024.

Are you displaying any new products?

James Brooks: "Yes, Valley Forge is most well-known for load-indicating externally threaded fasteners. We take the mystery out of torque-based load indicating and we have direct tension or direct load-indicating fasteners. This year we are launching an industry first compression-based load-indicating fastener. To date, for many years our fasteners have been tension-based load indicating and this year we’re launching a compression-based load-indicating fastener. The application is related to power generation. This is a housing assembly that was installed on the original series of General Electric’s wind turbines. We have a bolt that is placed in the assembly and the bolt is under compression, as opposed to being under tension. We have adapted our load-indicating technology to enable the same SPC-4 configuration we typically utilize, but this time the bolt is in compression instead of tension."