Klockner-werke Ag

Westfalia Nucleartechnik Gmbh & Co.

Horst Westerfeld

Hans Warnke

Kurt Togel

Apparatus for tightening and releasing nuts on screw-threaded studs to fit or release a cover on a pressure vessel employs several devices each for subjecting a respective one of the studs to tension to clamp the stud whilst the nut is rotated thereon. Each device employs a coupling mechanism for clamping a rod-like extension piece in end-to-end relationship to one of the studs to apply tension force thereto from a hydraulic piston and cylinder unit. The coupling mechanism takes the form of a sleeve containing several arcuate coupling segments guided for displacement radially of the stud and its extension piece. Cam surfaces on the coupling segments and the sleeve inter-engage as the sleeve is rotated to effect the displacement of the coupling segments between open and closed positions.

Device for selectively tensioning and clamping studs mounted on a

An arrangement for threading connecting elements, particularly threading bolts equipped with nuts threaded thereon, into and out of tapped bores of a reactor vessel to attach a lid to, and detach the same from the same includes a carrier ring which is supported on the lid during the threading operations, and a bolt-rotating device which is supported on a double-rail track mounted on and extending over the entire circumference of the carrier ring with a spacing therefrom, for displacement in the circumferential direction of the track. A lifting cylinder-and-piston unit is mounted on the carrier ring and tensions the threaded bolt during a part of the threading operations, while the bolt rotating device so acts on the respective bolt during a different part of the threading operations that the bolt is subjected to an axial force which counterbalances the weight of the bolt so that the same can be rotated into or out of the tapped bore with relative ease due to the fact that the frictional forces otherwise attributable to the weight of the bolt are eliminated or at least considerably reduced. The bolt-rotating device includes two coaxial sleeves received one within the other and each having an engaging portion having an aperture of the same shape as an actuating portion of the respective bolt which can thus be received in such apertures and engaged by the coaxial sleeves upon rotation of one of the sleeves relative to the other.

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Castrop-Rauxel, Germany

Horst Westerfeld