Advantages of Riveting

Riveting has several advantages over other types of fasteners. Rivets are relatively inexpensive, they offer several surface finishes, they are easy to assemble, they may be used to join different materials with different thicknesses, and they are strong. In the case of the aircraft industry rivets offer other advantages. In the aircraft industry aluminum alloys are the most common material used to produce rivets. This allows for lighter fasteners and resistance to atmospheric and chemical corrosion.

Rivets are usually constructed with straight shanks. They are not threaded like bolts or screws and are therefore easier and less expensive to produce. Rivets can come with various head configurations which offer different surface finishes. They can be produced such that the head of the rivet is flush with the surface or some types can have the head ground to be flush with the surface. Standard rivet types have a round smooth head which can be polished or painted to match the surface of the fastened material. Rivets can be assemble in a variety of methods. There are hand tools and hand guns which are used for riveting and there are large machines that perform riveting operations. The advantage of the hand-held rivet guns is that they are very maneuverable. They can also be used on curved or varying surface contours. A person can be easily trained to perform riveting operations. Rivets can be used to join different types of materials. A rivet can join metal and plastic, whereas other fasteners may have to be specially made to join metal and plastic. If the materials are of different thickness’, rivets could still be used to join them. Depending on the type of rivet it may be preferable to have the rivet head on one side or the other, but rivets could fasten the materials together. The rivets which are used in the aircraft industry are generally strong enough to meet the needs of the product although they are usually weaker than a bolt. Aluminum alloy rivets offer several advantages to the aircraft industries. They are lighter than bolts which aides in the industries’ strive to make the lightest products possible. Because many metals used in the aircraft industry are aluminum alloys, the aluminum rivets protect against chemical corrosion which could be possible if a steel or other metal bolt was used. Aluminum rivets also are protected from ordinary atmospheric corrosion.

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