Technical Insight into Hardened and Unhardened Flat Washers
It is common to think of a nut or bolt as the weak part of a product, but often that is not the case. By tweaking the type of fastener material, size or other specifications, manufacturing engineers can resolve torque, weight, stability and durability issues with no change to assembly or procedure.
For example, by simply replacing standard washers with hardened steel washers, the fasteners can be torqued to 50% higher clamping pressures, helping to resolve bolt failure issues without making drastic changes to the product design.