A Moment With …
Scott Hamilton : The Importance of Training Bolted Joint Best Practices
Scott Hamilton , Founder and CEO of Hex Technology , is a bolting expert . He knows all about bolting procedures , best practices , and the much-needed bolting standards about to enter the industry . Stainless Steel World Americas had the great privilege of speaking with Hamilton about his extensive career , and the future of bolting .
By Sarah Bradley
A Career in Bolting
In 2005 , Scott Hamilton worked as a salesman for a distribution company specializing in torque wrenches , pneumatic torque wrenches , and other high torque equipment . At the time , he would have called himself a bolting expert , though he says now in hindsight , that was not the case . “ I was at a nitrogen plant in Nebraska when a flange leaked ,” he recalled . Hamilton and the other members of his team could not determine the cause of the leak .
“ I started studying bolted flanges in my free time because I did not want to be called out again by a plant manager ,” he joked . “ I started realizing that there is this vacuum of knowledge in bolting , and there are very few people who work in this realm .” For the next seven years ,
Hamilton studied every piece of bolting literature he could get his hands on .
Hamilton also noticed that the lack of bolting knowledge was not unique to him , but rather was an industry-wide deficiency . To bridge this knowledge gap , Hamilton started the Bolting Symposium , an event where “ torque dorks ” and “ gasket stress enthusiasts ” like himself can network , talk shop , and better understand what innovations and regulations are needed in the industry . The first Bolting Symposium took place in January 2014 and was well attended , with high profile end user companies like Chevron and Shell in attendance .
“ I started the Symposium to look at bolting holistically . At the time , everybody sold products like torque wrenches that can , in part , solve the problem , but training is the only way the industry is going to improve ,” explained Hamilton . “ We needed to get to the fundamentals because there was just no knowledge in this industry .” That is why , to this day , training and education is still at the core of everything Hamilton , and his consultation and training firm , Hex Technology , does . Hamilton founded Hex Technology in 2014 .
“ There are two main groups of people that work in bolting – maintenance and reliability – but until we get everyone on the same page about best practices and we find a way to bring the two groups together , there are going to continue to be problems ,” he said . “ Our big goal is getting people up and running on good practices , procedures , and proper research .”
Creating Guidelines and Regulation
Hamilton is also Chairman of ASME PCC-1 , or the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Post-Construction Committee-1 . This group is focused on addressing issues and creating regulations for the bolting industry , specifically in documents like “ Guidelines for Pressure Boundary Bolted Flange Joint Assembly .” This is a consensus document , which means it was written by several experts across the bolting community and currently serves as a guideline .
Hamilton joined ASME PCC-1 in 2008 and became the Chairman of PCC-1 in 2019 . As Chair , Hamilton has been working with the committee to prepare the guideline document to become a standard . Appendix A of the document pertains specifically to “ Training and Qualification of Bolted Joint Assembly Personnel .” Appendix A training is the number one thing Hamilton believes professionals should be training on , because then they can start making educated decisions on how to treat flanges . “ This will change the guidelines from a ‘ should do ’ document , to a standard , which is a ‘ shall do ’ document ,” Hamilton said . “ The industry is going to have to start looking at bolting in a different way . There will be requirements that you need to have in your bolting program .” Of course , there will be a grace period for the adoption of these new standards , said Hamilton .
“ The biggest issue is not understanding how big the problem is ,” he said . “ We , as an industry , do a poor job reporting issues . If a flange leaks , we retighten it , or we put a clamp on it , and that fixes it temporarily .” Hamilton said that this leak and subsequent work is rarely documented . This makes it difficult to understand just how much rework has been done . Also , often there are more bolted joints than welded joints in industrial systems , but a lack of accurate reporting makes it difficult to track emissions from bolted joints . “ What is crazy is that we know there is a problem , we just have not recognized it yet . There is way more failures of bolted joints than welded joints .”
Hamilton said there are standard designs for the creation of flanges and heat exchangers , though not valves . Still , many
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