Multi Piece Fastener has won a 2021 Fastener Innovation Award for its ForeverLok™ fastener design from Worldwide Fastener Sources.com, a comprehensive source for fasteners globally.

The award, which is in its third year, recognizes groundbreaking design innovation in engineered fasteners today that will become a standard in future years. The Fastener Innovation Award is one of three prestigious awards in the fastener industry, along with the Soaring Eagle Awards from the Industrial Fastener Institute (IFI), and the Fastener Hall of Fame awards from the International Fastener Expo (IFE).

“It is an honor to be named a winner of the Fastener Innovation Award,” said Earl Size, Founder of Multi Piece Fastener. “As engineers incorporate innovative fasteners as part of the design process to solve challenging issues of vibration, we are proud to be part of the solution.”

In industries such as aerospace, marine, defense, construction, heavy equipment, oil and gas production, wind turbines, and automotive, tremendous repetitive forces contribute to fastener self-loosening. To prevent such self-loosening, the ForeverLok design involves three items: a central threaded fastener, a threaded intermediate fastener, and a retaining fastener. Essentially, the fastener system holds the nut in place to physically prevent it from loosening. The locking design does not use special pins, bolts, or tools to install or remove the nut. Only common tools are needed to fasten/unfasten.

International testing standards highlights:

The ForeverLok design results on the military vibrational test (NASM 1312-7) exceeded requirements by more than 14x and retained 93.5% of its original torque.

The ForeverLok design prototype fastener retained 89% of torque, surpassing the retention pass specification of the DIN 25201-4 test.

After concluding the break torque test, the ForeverLok design is estimated to have a 50% higher torque rating than the recommended torque rating for the 1/2" grade 8 bolt used in the testing. Thus, the fastener potentially could be configured as a smaller, lighter, and more compact fastener while providing a comparable torque value.