Two hundred billion a year: the humble fastener and its counterfeit problem
Americans get through more than 200 billion fasteners every year, and carmakers alone account for 26 billion of them. In 1988 a congressional subcommittee discovered that fake, mismarked and substandard ones had spread through critical civilian and military infrastructure, and it proposed lab testing for high-stakes parts before sale.
A fastener, or fastening in British usage, is hardware that joins objects mechanically, usually so they can be taken apart again without damage. That separates screws, bolts and nuts from welding, soldering, gluing or stitching, which may leave a permanent bond. The category has fuzzy edges. Rope, chain and wire can hold things together, but because they have so many other jobs they are not normally counted. Hinges and springs are left out too, since their main purpose is movement rather than holding things rigid. Flat-pack furniture depends on cam dowels locked by cam locks, and even a plastic bread clip qualifies as a special-purpose closure.
In 2005 the American fastener industry was estimated at 350 factories and 40,000 workers, closely tied to cars, aircraft, appliances, farm machinery and construction. Fastenal is North America's largest distributor. Most industrial fasteners are stainless, carbon or alloy steel, with titanium and aluminium also common, and coatings of zinc, chrome or hot-dip galvanising fight corrosion.
Head shape reflects the job. Flat heads sit flush for a tidy look, while socket heads turned by a hex key resist slipping under high torque. Hex and square heads give a wrench plenty to grip, flange heads spread clamping force to protect soft material, and wing heads can be twisted by hand for frequent adjustment.
Mismatched threads once caused real trouble. Hardware made in the United States often failed to fit British equipment, because the threads did not fully match, a gap that helped spur detailed US military standards for almost every piece of defence equipment, with the Second World War a major push. Those standards stress traceability: makers must be able to follow materials back to their origin, often with bar codes, so that a bad batch can be tracked to its source. The 1988 congressional inquiry led to the proposed Fastener Quality Assurance Act, bill HR5051.
Source: Fastener
