From wind turbine towers to robot joints, the competitive logic of screws is being redefined

The global bolt market is projected to grow from USD 493.7 billion in 2025 to USD 517.9 billion, representing a compound annual growth rate of approximately 4.9%. The market is still expanding, but the structure of that growth has shifted. China’s steel fastener market is expected to reach RMB 185 billion for the year, with ordinary carbon steel fasteners growing at less than 5%, while output of high-strength fasteners continues to grow at a double-digit rate and now accounts for approximately 38% of the total. The competitive focus of the fastener industry is moving away from “who can make standard parts more cheaply” toward “who can turn connection reliability under different operating conditions into a verifiable process capability.”

Demand-side segmentation is already clearly visible. The wind power sector offers the most direct illustration of this trend: in 2025, the global wind power fastener market exceeded USD 4.82 billion, up 14.7% year on year, and demand for Grade 10.9 and above ultra-high-strength bolts climbed to 36%. Driven by fatigue resistance and corrosion protection requirements in offshore wind, demand for M36 and larger fasteners grew by 19.3%. The scaling of wind turbines has pushed preload stability in tower connections, blade roots and foundation structures to the forefront of technical requirements. The penetration rate of zinc-aluminum-magnesium alloys and Dacromet coatings rose from 28% in 2023 to 47% in 2025, extending offshore maintenance intervals to more than eight years. New energy vehicles are also reshaping the demand structure: fastener content per vehicle is about 20% to 30% higher than that of conventional internal combustion engine vehicles, but the more important change is that evaluation criteria have expanded from “is the strength sufficient” to “will clamping force remain stable over time, and is the corrosion path controllable.” New high-performance connection points in battery packs, electric drive systems and thermal management modules require tolerance precision and anti-loosening performance far beyond those of traditional chassis fasteners.

Emerging applications are pushing segmentation to an even finer level. A humanoid robot uses between 500 and 1,000 fasteners per unit, covering M1 to M5 specifications. Core joint connection points require 4g-level precision thread tolerances, while the 6g-level general precision of traditional industrial bolts is no longer adequate for this application. The composite airframes of eVTOL aircraft introduce another set of constraints: carbon fiber laminates are extremely sensitive to hole-edge delamination, making titanium blind fasteners a key structural connection solution because they can be installed from one side without damaging the layup. Airworthiness certification also requires suppliers to provide a complete document chain from material composition to batch traceability, rather than a single “sample with impressive specifications.”

The industry’s technical response is shifting from a “specification race” to “process lock-in.” The core risk of Grade 10.9 and above high-strength fasteners is not insufficient strength but hydrogen-induced delayed fracture: if hydrogen introduced during pickling or electroplating is not thoroughly removed, it can cause unpredictable failure within hours to weeks after assembly, and the fracture surface is difficult to trace. This means the real barrier for high-strength fasteners is not whether a manufacturer can achieve the performance figures of Grade 12.9, but whether heat treatment regimes are consistent and whether every process node that may introduce hydrogen is systematically locked down. The choice of surface treatment is also shifting: zinc-aluminum coatings, as a hexavalent-chromium-free route, can withstand 720 to 1,500 hours of neutral salt spray without hydrogen embrittlement risk and are replacing traditional electroplating as the preferred option for high-strength automotive parts and outdoor new energy applications. The standards system is tightening in parallel. From February 2026, several core fastener national standards, including those for hex head bolts and hex socket head cap screws, will be implemented in modified adoption of ISO 2022. The definition of “qualified” is extending from dimensions and hardness to assembly reliability and full-process traceability.

In this transition from “tonnage” to “process determinism,” Jinsixi’s production line layout corresponds directly to the direction of the industry. As a high-strength fastener manufacturer certified to IATF 16949, Jinsixi covers Grade 8.8 to 12.9 hex socket, hex head and non-standard fasteners and serves fields such as automotive automation that have clear engineering requirements for connection reliability. The 24B cold heading machine introduced in early 2026, with a maximum processing diameter of 24 mm, is designed for volume production of M16 to M20 and larger high-strength bolts, directly responding to demand for supply security of large-format fasteners in wind power, heavy machinery and large equipment installation scenarios. The intelligent optical sorting machine put into use at the same time addresses the industry pain point of high missed-detection rates in manual sorting of long screws after straightening, raising sorting accuracy to above 99.9%. More significantly, Jinsixi disclosed an invention patent for a fastener hydrogen embrittlement testing device in 2025, targeting one of the most sensitive and least standardized links in high-strength fastener process control. Together, the combination of one large-format capacity system and one precision inspection system, along with a proactive move into hydrogen embrittlement testing capability, points to the same objective: in a fastener market where application-specific segmentation is becoming increasingly granular, building the determinism of every batch into the production line and management system carries more long-term weight than chasing a single performance label.