British Standard Whitworth (BSW) is an imperial-unit-based screw thread standard, devised and specified by Joseph Whitworth in 1841 and later adopted as a British Standard. It was the world's first national screw thread standard, and is the basis for many other standards, such as BSF, BSP, BSCon, and BSCopper.
The Whitworth thread was the world's first national screw thread standard,[1] devised and specified by Joseph Whitworth in 1841. Until then, the only standardization was what little had been done by individual people and companies, with some companies' in-house standards spreading a bit within their industries. Whitworth's new standard specified a 55° thread angle and a thread depth of 0.640327p and a radius of 0.137329p, where p is the pitch. The thread pitch increases with diameter in steps specified on a chart.
The Whitworth thread system was later to be adopted as a British Standard to become British Standard Whitworth (BSW). An example of the use of the Whitworth thread are the Royal Navy's Crimean War gunboats. These are the first instance of mass-production techniques being applied to marine engineering, as the following quotation from the obituary from The Times of 24 January 1887 for Sir Joseph Whitworth (1803–1887) shows:
The Crimean War began, and Sir Charles Napier demanded of the Admiralty 120 gunboats, each with engines of 60 horsepower, for the campaign of 1855 in the Baltic. There were just ninety days in which to meet this requisition, and, short as the time was, the building of the gunboats presented no difficulty. It was otherwise however with the engines, and the Admiralty were in despair. Suddenly, by a flash of the mechanical genius which was inherent in him, the late Mr John Penn solved the difficulty, and solved it quite easily. He had a pair of engines on hand of the exact size. He took them to pieces and he distributed the parts among the best machine shops in the country, telling each to make ninety sets exactly in all respects to the sample. The orders were executed with unfailing regularity, and he actually completed ninety sets of engines of 60 horsepower in ninety days – a feat which made the great Continental Powers stare with wonder, and which was possible only because the Whitworth standards of measurement and of accuracy and finish were by that time thoroughly recognised and established throughout the country.
An original example of the gunboat type engine was raised from the wreck of the SS Xantho by the Western Australian Museum. On disassembly, all its threads were shown to be of the Whitworth type.[2]
With the adoption of BSW by British railway companies, many of which had previously used their own standards both for threads and for bolt head and nut profiles, and the growing need generally for standardisation in manufacturing specifications, it came to dominate British manufacturing.
In the US, BSW was replaced when steel bolts replaced iron, but was still being used for some aluminium parts as late as the 1960s and 1970s when metric-based standards International Inch replaced the U.S. inch and U.K. inch in 1951-1964.[citation needed]
American Unified Coarse (UNC) was originally based on almost the same Imperial fractions. The Unified thread angle is 60° and has flattened crests (Whitworth crests are rounded). From 1⁄4in up to 1+1⁄2in, thread pitch is the same in both systems except that the thread pitch for the 1⁄2in bolt is 12 threads per inch (tpi) in BSW versus 13 tpi in the UNC.
Thread form
Whitworth thread form
The form of a Whitworth thread is based on a fundamental triangle with an angle of 55° at each peak and valley. The sides are at a flank angle of Θ = 27.5° perpendicular to the axis. Thus, if the thread pitch is p, the height of the fundamental triangle is H = p/(2tanΘ) = 0.96049106p. However, the top and bottom 1⁄6 of each of these triangles is cut off, so the actual depth of thread (the difference between major and minor diameters) is 2⁄3 of that value, or h = p/(3tanΘ) = 0.64032738p. The peaks are further reduced by rounding them with a 2×(90° − Θ) = 180° − 55° = 125° circular arc. This arc has a height of e = Hsin Θ/6 = 0.073917569p (leaving a straight flank depth of h − 2e = 0.49249224p) and a radius of r = e/(1 − sin Θ) = 0.13732908p.
List of thread sizes
Below is the historical thread size table, not to be confused with G threads, which are actually in use as British Standard Pipe. For example a G½ (half inch) is 20.955mm in diameter.[3]
To simplify matters, the term hexagon is used in this section to denote either bolt head or nut.
Two spanners, both nominal size 5⁄8in, with a diagram superimposed to show the logic that allows them both to be nominal size 5⁄8in when their actual sizes are clearly different (across-flats distance vs screw diameter). The across-flats definition is the common standard today, and has been for many decades. The larger spanner in this photo is from the 1920s or earlier. Its face was polished to allow the size stamp to show well in the photograph. This example is American, but it illustrates the way that spanners for Whitworth fasteners were typically labelled.
Whitworth and BSF spanner markings refer to the bolt diameter, rather than the distance across the flats of the hexagon (A/F) as in other standards. Confusion can arise because each Whitworth hexagon was originally one size larger than that of the corresponding BSF fastener. This leads to instances where for example, a spanner marked 7⁄16BSF is the same size as one marked 3⁄8W. In both cases the spanner jaw width of 0.710in, the width across the hexagon flat, is the same.
Certain branches of industry used Whitworth fasteners with a smaller hexagon (identical to BSF of the same bolt diameter) under the designation "AutoWhit" or Auto-Whit[citation needed][7] and this series was formalised by the British Engineering Standards Association in 1929 as standard No. 193, with the 'original' series being No. 190 and the BSF series No. 191.[8]
During World War II the smaller size hexagon was adopted more widely to save metal[9] and this usage persisted thereafter. Thus it is today common to encounter a Whitworth hexagon which does not fit the nominally correct spanner and following the previous example, a more modern spanner may be marked 7⁄16BS to indicate that they have a jaw size of 0.710in and designed to take either the (later) 7⁄16BSW or 7⁄16BSF hexagon.[10][11][12]
Whitworth fasteners with the larger hexagons to BS 190 are now often colloquially referred to as 'pre-war' size, even though that is not strictly correct.
The British Standard Fine (BSF) standard has the same thread angle as the BSW, but has a finer thread pitch and smaller thread depth. This is more like the modern "mechanical" screw[clarification needed] and was used for fine machinery and for steel bolts.
The British Standard Cycle (BSC) standard which replaced the Cycle Engineers' Institute (CEI) standard was used on British bicycles and motorcycles. It uses a thread angle of 60° compared to the Whitworth 55° and very fine thread pitches.
The British Association screw thread (BA) standard is sometimes classed with the Whitworth standard fasteners because it is often found in the same machinery as the Whitworth standard. However it is actually a metric based standard that uses a 47.5° thread angle and has its own set of head sizes. BA threads have diameters of 6mm (0BA) and smaller, and were and still are particularly used in precision machinery.
The Whitworth 55° angle remains commonly used today worldwide in form of the 15 British standard pipe threads defined in ISO 7, which are commonly used in water supply, cooling, pneumatics, and hydraulic systems. These threads are designated by a number between 1/16 and 6 that originates from the nominal internal diameter (i/d) in inches of a steel pipe for which these threads were designed. These pipe thread designations do not refer to any thread diameter.
Other threads that used the Whitworth 55° angle include Brass Threads, British Standard Conduit (BSCon), Model Engineers' (ME), and British Standard Copper (BSCopper).
Current usage
The widely used (except in the US) British Standard Pipe thread, as defined by the ISO228 standard (formerly BS-2779), uses Whitworth standard thread form. Even in the United States, personal computer liquid cooling components use the G1⁄4 thread from this series.[citation needed]
The Leica Thread-Mount used on rangefinder cameras and on many enlarging lenses is 1+17⁄32in by 26 turns-per-inch Whitworth, an artifact of this having been developed by a German company specializing in microscopes and thus equipped with tooling capable of handling threads in inches and in Whitworth.[citation needed]
The 5⁄32in Whitworth threads have been the standard Meccano thread for many years and it is still the thread in use by the French Meccano Company.[citation needed]
Stage lighting suspension bolts are most commonly 3⁄8in and 1⁄2in BSW. Companies that initially converted to metric threads have converted back, after complaints that the finer metric threads increased the time and difficulty of setup, which often takes place at the top of a ladder or scaffold.[citation needed]
Fixings for garden gates traditionally used Whitworth carriage bolts, and these are still the standard supplied in UK and Australia.[citation needed]
Historical misuse
British Morris and MG engines from 1923 to 1955 were built using metric threads with bolt heads and nuts dimensioned for Whitworth spanners and sockets.[13] In 1919, Morris Motors took over the French Hotchkiss engine works which had moved to Coventry during the First World War. The Hotchkiss machine tools were of metric thread but metric spanners were not readily available in Britain at the time, so fasteners were made with metric thread but Whitworth heads.[14]
In popular culture
In the 2011 movie Cars 2 by Disney / Pixar, the vital clue to the discovery of the villain, Sir Miles Axlerod, is that he uses Whitworth bolts. Although Axlerod does not precisely resemble any real car (whereas numerous other characters are closely modelled on real cars), he seems most closely to match the original Range Rover Classic. In reality, early model Range Rovers used parts with imperial dimensions, although the photograph of the villain's engine is virtually identical to the later 3.5 litre single plenum Rover V8 (A design purchased from GM's Buick).
A wrench or spanner is a tool used to provide grip and mechanical advantage in applying torque to turn objects—usually rotary fasteners, such as nuts and bolts—or keep them from turning.
Taps and dies are tools used to create screw threads, which is called threading. Many are cutting tools; others are forming tools. A tap is used to cut or form the female portion of the mating pair. A die is used to cut or form the male portion of the mating pair. The process of cutting or forming threads using a tap is called tapping, whereas the process using a die is called threading.
The Unified Thread Standard (UTS) defines a standard thread form and series—along with allowances, tolerances, and designations—for screw threads commonly used in the United States and Canada. It is the main standard for bolts, nuts, and a wide variety of other threaded fasteners used in these countries. It has the same 60° profile as the ISO metric screw thread, but the characteristic dimensions of each UTS thread were chosen as an inch fraction rather than a millimeter value. The UTS is currently controlled by ASME/ANSI in the United States.
American National Standard Pipe Thread standards, often called national pipe thread standards for short, are United States national technical standards for screw threads used on threaded pipes and pipe fittings. They include both tapered and straight thread series for various purposes, including rigidity, pressure-tight sealing, or both. The types are named with a full name and an abbreviation, such as NPT, NPS, NPTF, or NPSC.
A socket wrench is a type of spanner that uses a closed socket format, rather than a typical open wrench/spanner to turn a fastener, typically in the form of a nut or bolt.
A screw thread is a helical structure used to convert between rotational and linear movement or force. A screw thread is a ridge wrapped around a cylinder or cone in the form of a helix, with the former being called a straight thread and the latter called a tapered thread. A screw thread is the essential feature of the screw as a simple machine and also as a threaded fastener.
British Association screw threads, or BA screw threads, are a set of small screw threads, the largest being 0BA at 1/4" diameter. They were, and to some extent still are, used for miniature instruments and modelling.
British Standard Pipe (BSP) is a set of technical standards for screw threads that has been adopted internationally for interconnecting and sealing pipes and fittings by mating an external (male) thread with an internal (female) thread. It has been adopted as standard in plumbing and pipe fitting, except in North America, where NPT and related threads are used.
British Standard Brass or British Brass Thread is an imperial unit based screw thread. It adopts the Whitworth thread form with a pitch of 26 threads per inch and a thread angle of 55 degrees for all diameters. It is often wrongly called British Standard Brass but is not actually covered by a British Standard.
The ISO metric screw thread is the most commonly used type of general-purpose screw thread worldwide. They were one of the first international standards agreed when the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) was set up in 1947.
British Standard Fine (BSF) is a screw thread form, as a fine-pitch alternative to British Standard Whitworth (BSW) thread. It was used for steel bolts and nuts on and in much of Britain's machinery, including cars, prior to adoption of Unified, and later Metric, standards. For highly stressed conditions, especially in motorcycles, a finer thread, British Standard Cycle (BSC), was used as well.
A screw is an externally helical threaded fastener capable of being tightened or released by a twisting force (torque) to the head. The most common uses of screws are to hold objects together and there are many forms for a variety of materials. Screws might be inserted into holes in assembled parts or a screw may form its own thread.
A nut is a type of fastener with a threaded hole. Nuts are almost always used in conjunction with a mating bolt to fasten multiple parts together. The two partners are kept together by a combination of their threads' friction, a slight stretching of the bolt, and compression of the parts to be held together.
United States Standard thread, also known as Sellers Standard thread, Franklin Institute thread and American Standard thread, is a standard for inch based threaded fasteners and washers.
British Standard Cycle is a British Imperial screw thread standard. Unlike other major British imperial thread standards the thread runs at a 60 degrees rather than a 55 degrees angle. All sizes 1⁄4 inch and larger use 26 threads per inch (tpi), making them similar to 1 mm ISO threads, which are 25.4 per inch and also run at a 60 degrees angle. It was originally used with both bicycles and motorcycles. However it is now believed to be obsolete in motorcycle manufacture. In the bicycle industry it is still found on virtually all bottom bracket threads and the wheel axles of low-end models manufactured in China, which are derived from pre-WWII British roadsters.
A bolt is an externally helical threaded fastener capable of being tightened or released by a twisting force (torque) to a matching nut. The bolt has an external male thread requiring a matching nut with a pre-formed female thread.
Width across flats is the distance between two parallel surfaces on the head of a screw or bolt, or a nut, mostly for torque transmission by positive locking.
The Swiss-designed Thury screw thread is a metric thread standard that was developed in the late nineteenth century for screws used in scientific and horological instruments. The thread is named after Marc Thury, an engineer and professor at the University of Geneva who contributed heavily to the standard's development.
The Löwenherz thread is a largely obsolete metric thread form designed in the late nineteenth century and frequently applied in precision instruments. It is named after Dr. Leopold Löwenherz, who was the director of the metrology institute Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt in Berlin.
References
↑ Gilbert, K. R., & Galloway, D. F., 1978, "Machine Tools". In C. Singer, et al., (Eds.), 'A history of technology. Oxford, Clarendon Press & Lee, S. (Ed.), 1900, Dictionary of national biography, Vol LXI. Smith Elder, London
↑ McCarthy, M., and Garcia, R., 2004, "Screw Threads on the SS Xantho: A Case of Standardisation in 19th Century Britain". The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, 33. (1): 54–66.
↑ Wood, J. (1977) (50 m)˜ The restoration and preservation of vintage & classic cars", Yeovil: Haynes, ISBN0-85429-186-5
↑ Harvey, Chris (1977) (50 m)˜ The Immortal T Series, Oxford Illustrated Press, ISBN0-902280-46-5
Bibliography
Oberg, E., Jones, F.D., Hussain, M., McCauley, C.J., Ryffel, H.H. and Heald, R.M. (2008) Machinery's handbook: a reference book for the mechanical engineer, designer, manufacturing engineer, draftsman, toolmaker, and machinist, 28th Ed., New York: Industrial Press, ISBN978-0-8311-2800-5, p.1858–1860
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