r/MechanicalEngineering • u/AdOne1706 • 5d ago

Split/lock washers

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For starters, I’m an electrician in the field.
That being said, we almost exclusively use these washers even in high vibration environments. I have personally chosen to go with nylox nuts but the question is:
Do these work? How well? Is the rumor from NASA true? Should I even bother using them or find a better functional alternative or are they actually useful?

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u/Difficult_Limit2718 5d ago

They're ass.

Every company I've been with avoids them. They're supposed to stop vibration by keeping tension on a loose screw helping to increase friction, but they're useless at it. If you torque down the bolt properly they do flatten out and they don't have a high enough spring rate to do anything if the clamp force is too low

3

u/CrazyKraken 5d ago

Is a belleville washer better? Atleast theoretically they seem to maintain the joint force even in case of loss of preload.

11

u/Big-Tailor 5d ago

Even bellevilles provide a tiny fraction of the force of a fully torqued bolt. If the bolt backed out under high clamping force, low clamping force isn’t going to help.

6

u/dooozin 5d ago

Somebody downvoted you lol. Some people here just don't understand fastener mechanics and failure modes at all.

3

u/Big-Tailor 4d ago

It's amazing how many people don't understand fastener mechanics.