New Silicone Plant in China uses RotaBolt Technology

The fasteners have been designed-in because of their successful track record in Dow Corning’s flange management control systems at its plant in Barry, South Wales, where they have been used for a number of years. “We are using RotaBolt fasteners more extensively at the new plant,” commented the Senior Mechanical Engineering Specialist at Dow Corning, who is involved with the company’s new projects, “they have had a good record in South Wales and we are using them more, particularly on large body joints, to help assure joint integrity.”

The unique fasteners have been selected by Dow Corning based on two main criteria. Firstly, they use RotaBolts to ensure that a minimum bolt tension has been achieved and to monitor loss of the minimum bolt tension throughout the life of the plant. Secondly, Dow Corning’s requirements on the control of materials were more than met by RotaBolt’s own assurance procedures which see every fastener being 100% load test calibrated.

At South Wales, Dow Corning came to view RotaBolt fasteners as an important “hardware component” in their management of critical joints. Over 10 years ago the company began to investigate all the measures that could be taken to increase the reliability of bolted joints as part of their commitment to high integrity systems.

This resulted in RotaBolt fasteners being fitted on a number of pressure vessels and heat exchangers. They were also used on some of the high integrity pipeline flanges. The company found that another major advantage was the tactile tension monitoring system which meant that an instant “finger test” of the RotaCap on each fastener was all that was required to let the engineer know that the correct load was being maintained.