BoltSafe

BoltSafe is a Dutch manufacturer of bolt load cells and load measuring systems, providing engineers and asset owners with accurate, real-time insight into the clamping force of bolted connections from assembly through to long-term monitoring.

The challenge with bolted connections has always been uncertainty: without direct measurement, there is no reliable way to confirm that the correct bolt load has been achieved or maintained. Insufficient or unequal clamping force is a leading cause of gasket leaks, fatigue failures, and costly unplanned maintenance on high-loaded structures such as cranes, wind turbines, and process pipework. BoltSafe was founded to solve exactly this problem.

Conceived in 1995 and bringing its first products to market in 2001, BoltSafe has spent more than two decades refining its core technology: a compact load sensor that installs directly into a bolted joint as a washer. Once in place, the sensor measures actual bolt load during assembly ensuring correct tool settings and eliminating guesswork and continues to monitor load over time, alerting operators to relaxation, underload, or overload before it becomes a problem.

All design, engineering, production, and calibration takes place at BoltSafe’s facility in Beuningen, the Netherlands. This end-to-end control over manufacturing enables short lead times, consistent quality, and the in-house R&D capability to keep pace with evolving connectivity requirements — from traditional wired readout through to wireless IoT and LoRaWAN integration.

The BoltSafe product range includes:

• Bolt Load Sensors: compact, washer-style load cells for measuring and monitoring clamping force in bolted joints
• Handheld Reader: portable readout unit for spot-checking individual sensors during assembly or inspection
• Network with PDI / PDI-NT: multi-sensor networked systems for continuous monitoring across large bolted structures
• RS-232 and Analog Converter: integration options for existing PLC and SCADA systems
• IoT-node and BLE-node: wireless readout via Bluetooth and cellular for remote or hard-to-access installations
• LoRaWAN Integration: long-range, low-power wireless connectivity for large-scale industrial monitoring networks