What is the difference between fasteners, bolts and screws?

What is the difference between fasteners, bolts and screws?

Fastener is a general term to describe something which is used as a restraint for holding things together or attaching to other things.

The main physical distinction between screws and bolts is that screws are entirely full of threads while bolts contain shanks without threads. However, a better interpretation of the differences between the two is that bolts are always fitted with nuts. On the contrary, screws are normally used with tapped holes.

 What is the function of washers when using bolts?

The purpose of installing washers in a typical bolting system is to distribute the loads under bolt heads and nuts by providing a larger area under stress. Otherwise, the bearing stress of bolts may exceed the bearing strength of the connecting materials and this leads to loss of preload of bolts and creeping of materials. Alternatively, flanged fasteners instead of using washers could be adopted to achieve the same purpose.

 What is the difference between normal bolts and high friction grip bolts?

High friction grip bolts are commonly used in structural steelwork. They normally consist of high tensile strength bolts and nuts with washers. The bolts are tightened to a shank tension so that the transverse load across the joint is resisted by the friction between the plated rather than the bolt shank's shear strength.