Riveting Processes in Aircraft Structural Engineering

Riveting remains a cornerstone of aircraft structural assembly, providing a robust and reliable means of joining sheet-metal components in fuselage skins, wing panels and internal frames. The process typically involves driving a fastener through pre-drilled holes in overlapping sheets and deforming the tail end to form a load-bearing head. Solid and interference-fit rivets dominate primary structures for their high static strength and fatigue resistance. Advances in automated drilling and riveting machines have improved hole accuracy and clamping consistency, while novel rivet alloys and surface treatments address corrosion and fretting wear. The interplay of squeezing force, hole tolerance, rivet material and sheet thickness governs residual stress distributions, load transfer paths and crack initiation sites. Contemporary efforts focus on minimising assembly deformation, optimising multi-row joint load sharing, and integrating real-time quality monitoring. These developments underpin global efforts to extend aircraft service life, enhance safety margins and reduce maintenance interventions through informed control of process parameters and joint design.

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Recent investigations have elucidated the influence of process variables on residual stress, clamping force and fatigue behaviour in thin-sheet riveted lap joints. Finite-element studies linked rivet-driving force, sheet and rivet material properties, hole tolerances and squeeze ratios to the location of crack initiation, fretting wear severity and fatigue crack propagation paths, providing guidance on parameter windows that minimise residual tensile hoop stress around holes.

Analytical modelling efforts have introduced non-uniform deformation of rivets into conventional squeezing-force equations. By accounting for frictional effects, barreling of the driven head, spring-back and convex head geometry, the refined models achieve higher accuracy under aerospace-typical squeeze ratios, enabling prediction of clamping force with improved fidelity for wing and fuselage panel assembly.

A three-dimensional characterisation of residual stress in multi-row riveted panel structures has been achieved through thick-walled cylinder theory and vector synthesis of single- and double-row configurations. The resulting analytical framework extends to complex fuselage panels and has been validated by X-ray diffraction and finite-element simulation, offering a comprehensive tool for predicting fatigue-critical stress fields in service environments.

Riveting Processes in Aircraft Structural Engineering publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in riveting processes in aircraft structural engineering across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Interference-fit riveting: A technique in which the rivet shank diameter slightly exceeds the hole diameter, producing clamping force and residual compressive stress in the sheets.

Lap joint: An overlap configuration in which two sheets are joined by rivets passing through both layers to distribute load across the overlap.

Butt joint: A joint where two sheet edges are joined end-to-end with a cover or strap plate and rivets to provide continuity of load transfer.

Countersunk rivet: A flush-head rivet installed in a countersunk hole to minimise aerodynamic drag and surface discontinuity.

Residual stress: Stress locked into a structure after riveting, arising from plastic deformation and elastic spring-back, which affects fatigue performance.

Clamping force: The compressive force generated by radial interference between rivet and hole, essential for load transfer and joint stiffness.

Fretting wear: Localised surface damage caused by micro-oscillatory motion between sheet interfaces under cyclic loading, accelerating crack initiation.

References

1. Effect of aircraft rivet installation process and production variables on residual stress, clamping force and fatigue behaviour of thin sheet riveted lap joints. Thin-Walled Structures (2022).
2. Analytical Modeling of Riveting Squeezing Force Considering Non-Uniform Deformation of Rivets in Aeronautical Structures. Materials (2024).
3. Three-Dimensional Characterization of Residual Stress in Aircraft Riveted Panel Structures. Aerospace (2024).