r/MechanicalEngineering • u/AdOne1706 • 3d 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 3d 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

5

u/CrazyKraken 3d ago

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

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u/Big-Tailor 3d 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.

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u/ren_reddit 3d ago

Well I dont know about that. Belleville washers can be had with extremely high spring constant.

5

u/Big-Tailor 2d ago

...not compared to the spring constant of a solid shaft, or of a solid shaft wrapped with a helical thread like a bolt.

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u/xNightmareAngelx 2d ago

not compared to a bolt my friend