Page 39 - Commercial Vehicle Engineer - June 2021

WHEEL NUT SECURITY
For Gary Broadfield, managing director of Wheely-Safe, wheel
nuts coming loose is a big issue for
the industry, but one that is often downplayed, as operators don’t like to admit to incidents. “There are several thousand incidents per year, but we believe the true figure is a lot worse than that,” he says.
However, he has sympathy with operators. “Wheels have been around since the Flintstones and if they can’t keep them on now, they will never do,” he says. “But the process is getting harder rather than easier as operators are getting more out of the vehicles – higher weights, using twin wheels a lot more, going off-road a lot more, plus there are things like potholes to contend with.
“Some operators follow the most extreme basic routines and schedules of maintenance and even with the best procedures in place you can still get a wheel off and that’s because a nut and bolt is a mechanical solution that has its flaws.
“There are several thousand incidents per year, but we believe the true figure is a lot worse than that”
“If you think about a nut, you have
to create enough friction to keep it on, but you have to allow the wheel to go on and off, so you have to have clearance around all the holes and that allows for micromovement. Micromovement allows for things to start working loose. People believe if they torque the nuts up once
a week they will never have a problem, but the vehicle can hit a pothole the next day and it starts working loose and they can [quickly develop] a problem. A nut is a mechanically deficient way of doing things, but it isn’t going anywhere soon.”
Driver responsibility
As the problems that can occur with wheel nuts are well known, many can be mitigated by good management
of wheels, and in recent years, many operators have paid more attention to this, according to Phil Lloyd, Logistics UK’s head of engineering and vehicle standards policy.
“Over recent years, more organisations have moved into contracting out tyre maintenance to, for example, the big tyre companies, and part of that is wheel security and they will torque the wheels properly as opposed to fitting them with an air gun," he says.
“There has been a movement to
better wheel security and using torque wrenches and settings and following the guidance. For example, when you change a wheel you re-torque it, which used to be an issue – people would torque it up and that would be it, instead of letting it settle and then re-torquing it.”
Gary Broadfield, Wheely-Safe
COMMERCIAL VEHICLE ENGINEER > JUNE 2021 39