Phase V: Torque to failure

One thing that seemed to occur again and again was that the nut would fail before the bolt would. If you used the same grade nut as the bolt you'd end up with just a stripped nut. On the other hand if you used a higher grade nut say a grade 8 then you'd be able to torque the bolt to failure. It also seems that it causes the bolt to fail at a lower torque than if you used a lower quality nut. I believe this is because the grade 8 nut is harder than the bolt so it "bites" into the softer steel on the bolt. This seems to conclude that you are able to "get more" out of a fastener with a higher grade nut.

Man's best friend.

Some nuts just don't want to come off.

Required tools for breaking bolts and bustin some nuts.

Our class strongly believes in cleaning up after ourselves...

Torquing these bolts to failure dry ended up stripping the nuts except the grade 8 bolt/nut.

Even the grade 5 nut just ended up stripping before the bolt broke.

Stripped nut that's as smooth as butter.

Grade 8 nut with a no dash bolt caused the bolt to break at 60ftlbs.

Using a nut splitter since someone graciously left me 3 stripped nuts.
I've lovingly nicknamed it the "Ex-wife".