This article describes further activities on the securing of vehicle wheels, after the Institute of Road Transport Engineers (IRTE) concluded its research into the causes and cures of loosened and lost wheels in 1989. Its results led to the formation of a British Standards Institution (BSI) committee to prepare a new standard for commercial vehicle wheels and their fixings. That process has met repeated delays for a variety of reasons. At the time of writing, the contract for further test work had returned to the Motor Industry Research Association (MIRA), some of it attempting to confirm the IRTE findings, but not yet including a proving programme of the IRTE recommendations. In the meantime, wheel losses continue to occur sporadically, but it is not clear to what standards wheels should be checked and maintained. A recently completed investigation by the Open University and Exeter University found that too much blind faith was beingput in torque settings. Sufficient wheelstud tension should be applied to keep a bolted joint secure and free from fatigue, but is still not known how much this tension should be to ensure no loosening. This is a key question, which has high priority; the IRTE study indicated that the tension should exceed 15 tonnes, and further work by the BSI might provide a conclusive answer.
Samenvatting