A Look Into The Future of Riveting

Engineering practices have literally pinned structures upon the humble rivet. During the height of the industrial evolution, the rivet pinned steel structures in place, retaining frameworks that acted as indestructible skeletons for the new generation of buildings that were rising to touch the sky. Refer to any black and white image of the daring constructors balancing on narrow beams during the evolution of New York in the 1930's, and it's immediately evident just how vital the rivet was in establishing the grandeur of that infamous skyline. Seasoned riveters hammered in rivets, securing sections of iron framework. We can gaze closely at historical literature and read of this fascinating process, of how hot rivets were grabbed by specialized tools and forced into a mating hole. The same engineering prowess is seen in 19th century locomotives as hundreds of elegant perforations covering every joint and paneled interface of the engine.

The reason for the rivet gaining such popularity during the industrial revolution lays in its simplicity, the ease of its application. Once in place, applied with heat or impact, the rivet is capable of carrying tons of load-bearing weight, an essential property during a time when iron was finding its way into heavy industry. But times change, and the trailing edge of the industrial age is fading into the distance. New fasteners and chemical solutions are taking over from the rivet. Powerful adhesives with properties borrowed from nature, from the webs that spiders spin to secure their prey, are being synthesized in laboratories. This bonding technology has many advantages over the standard rivet. Imagine a join between materials that's invisible to the naked eye. There's no need to pre-drill holes because there's no mechanical fastener to attach. Having said this, a rivet still has age-old advantages that can't be easily dismissed. A rivet can be removed if a part needs to be removed for maintenance or repair, something that would be next to impossible to accomplish with any adhesive substitute.

After having covered all of this territory about the decline of the rivet, we might conclude the future is dark for this reliable fastener, but this isn't true. The rivet is rapidly adapting, becoming smaller to fix delicate parts together. Modern riveting tools can punch out around 60 rivets a minute, fixing parts in place on an automobile assembly line. The future for the rivet is an encouraging world of compromise where the new adhesives live side-by-side with the evolving rivet. Indeed, in some applications strong chemical bonding agents are being used in tandem with the rivet, creating new avenues of usage that take us back to the glory days of construction work.

Alex Cokes has only one mission: to help inform people.Viist at www.hansonrivet.com for more info.