What are the benefits for customers and what are the main evolutions of the fastener industry in the near future.
Our Principal Engineer Michele Sale offers an overview of the Testing on Fasteners service: why it is important, which companies we work with, what are the benefits for customers and what are the main evolutions of the fastener industry in the near future.
What types of companies are targeted by this type of service? Is it requested by companies in specific sectors or does it find interest in various industries?
TEC Eurolab has been operating as a laboratory in the fastener industry for twenty years now, conducting batch control and qualification testing/ incoming batch verification activities at customers who also purchase from stock. the first ever aeronautical customer was in fact the leading distributor of aeronautical fasteners known nationally and now internationally, boasting major aeronautical OEMs operating in both the civil and military sectors. Building on this experience, service was expanded to other distributors and manufacturers of fasteners, expanding both the number of aviation customers served and the sectors, with automotive and biomedical being the primary ones.
Core testing activities for TEC Eurolab include testing of mechanical connection elements, speaking of fasteners. Could you give a quick overview of the service and types of testing performed?
In these two decades the pure testing activity has not changed much, except that gradually over the years we have completed the range of tests globally required in the industry. These range from “torque” tests in the mechanical area and metallurgical and integrity checks of the recasting process to chemical and surface NDEs, typically liquid penetrants. To date, our laboratory is equipped with the technologies and expertise to fully characterize any mechanical connecting element.
With which figures within companies do you most dialogue?
Our interfaces are typically people involved in quality control, this is an area that is not necessarily innovative and even repetitive on the testing side, but one that requires careful planning, considering the volumes of testing conducted. Not for nothing, we have invested heavily in the digitization of production control processes and order tracking.
To date, with several clients we are dialoguing with technical interfaces that are developing cross-cutting technical packages with us to propose to the various end users in the industry. We therefore operate not only as test performers, but also as technical experts in defining and structuring dedicated test plans. Ongoing and open dialogue with the customer is essential.
We are experimenting with distributors of aeronautical fasteners, on a large scale, the approach we have had with other customers in terms of technical support in defining the control plan, a proposal already in place with other customers on commercial fasteners, products that are nonetheless present in the aeronautical and automotive sectors.
As far as you indicate, not so much the evidence but just the market demand in terms of service is potentially changing, how do you structure the service package so understood? what are the critical points of these activities?
The whole thing came about a little over three years ago, after the aircraft accidents of the recent past the need for controls has increased even in commercial fasteners that historically in the industry were considered in “free-pass” with chemical control performed by the batch supplier. At this juncture, we supported the customer in understanding the control structure and sequence and the minimum necessary tests related to the relevant ISO standards. On the client side, there is often a lack of vertical figures with expertise to structure test plans; so we step in to support. Obviously, the control statistics and the definition of the inspection batch are the responsibility of the customer as required by ISO 3269, but as a laboratory we can put our expertise to support the definition of these test plans. With some customers we have taken this approach further by arriving at the total new definition of the testing program with totally revised batch inspection schedules for specific job orders. Our desire is to contract this support/service mode with the customer so that the production flow is as streamlined as possible.
In addition to the pure execution of the test, what are the steps for properly defining the number, type, and sequence of tests? Basically, what are the necessary steps before the actual test and what are the critical points of these activities?
First and foremost, it is necessary to have knowledge of international standards and proprietary name of different customers and “end users,” which is accompanied by knowledge of critical process issues and materials involved. We talk about high-strength steels, stainless steels that are referred to as “corrosion resistance alloys,” generically referred to as “CRES” in the industry. CRES also means nickel-iron based superalloys such as alloy A286, not exactly a classic stainless steel! Of course, unfailing are titanium and aluminum alloys, after all, lightening is a “must” in the aviation industry….and an airplane has many, many screws!
The package of tests must be prepared on classes of products and materials and must be proposable as a control scheme on standard sheets. This makes it possible to reduce the time of verification activities through a solid control scheme that covers chemical analysis, metallurgical testing, mechanical, and in nondestructive testing, such as with liquid penetrants. As I said, this scheme is populated with quantities from the customer.
We are then left with the correlation of deviations and changes in regulatory requirements. We are talking about an area where standardization has accumulated over the years, with few updates and “maintenance” of the regulatory framework, and experience in evaluating the component and its testing requirements counts quite a bit.
The industry moves at very high speed and with timely urgencies related to assembly lines. In all this preparation of activities, technical analysis of the batches that arrive, the tests have not yet started and once all the technical details of the control are planned the laboratory activity starts. In fact, it is necessary to define a control flow that has its own specific track.
From a laboratory’s perspective, what types of testing requests will increase in the coming years? In addition to the tests that are traditionally conducted, do you see an increase in requests for any particular types of testing?
The automotive sector lives very much on “mechanical” control of fasteners, but I see the need for surface metallurgical control and hydrogen compatibility of materials in manufacturing and coating processes growing; this is in the automotive sector, but also in aerospace. Likewise, surface PND control will be on the rise especially in the aerospace area. Not to mention the topic of surface functionalization, which I think will increase a lot of interest in the coming years.
From the customer’s point of view, what short- and long-term benefits do you recognize in terms of product quality and the overall cost of its component?
Mainly, ensure product quality assurance and simplify inspection needs, as the fastener industry has very long supply chains. Our service aims at this.
Moving in the testing field in these contexts is complex because of an often misunderstood, albeit clear, distribution of responsibilities between those who produce, distribute and check. Beyond that a guarantee of certain times in the verification of batches in testing. When starting from a solid contractual base, in TEC Eurolab we can cover basic activities with a lead time of 7 days. And on emergencies we can be much faster.
Many service centers can deliver testing activities, but the real added value we can give is to accompany the customer in the timely definition of a “tailor-made” testing plan based on actual testing needs and adapt quickly to variations. In short, continually working to seek the right balance between flexibility of lead times, quality of testing service delivered, and meeting agreed deadlines.