Handbook of Railroad Construction; For the use of American engineers. / Containing the necessary rules, tables, and formulæ for the location, construction, equipment, and management of railroads, as built in the United States.

by George L. Vose

	Diameter of rivet.	Distance between rivets.
Mr. Fairbairn	⅝ inch, or 0.625 inch,	0.8
Handbook	⅔ inch, or 0.666 inch,	0.8

The difference between the results, or 0.041 inch, less than one sixteenth inch, will be partially absorbed by the remark of Mr. Fairbairn that the area of the rivet should be nearly as much as that of the plate, and partly by the difference in results showing the detrusional force of iron.

Fig. 117.

238. In experimenting to determine the resistance of rivets, Mr. Fairbairn found that by the common plan of riveting, fig. 117, the strength of plates when whole, single, and double riveted, was as follows, the section of the punched plate being in each case equal to that of the whole one.

Whole plate,	100.
Single riveted,	56.
Double riveted,	70.

This loss of strength made him fearful of the ability of the tension plates of the Britannia bridge to do their duty; and he was led to adopt what he terms “chain riveting,” which consists in placing the rivets as in fig. 118, or in the same line of tension. The strength of plates thus made he considers as great at the joints as elsewhere.

239. As to the diameter of rivets, we have the following results of the practice of the best English engineers.

Thickness of plate,	¼,	5 16,	⅜,	7 16,	½,	9 16,	⅝,	11 16,	¾.
Diameter of rivet,	⅝,	6 8,	⅞,	1,	1,	1⅛,	1¼,	1⅜,	1½.

240. As to the distance in the direction of the force from rivet to rivet, also from the first rivet to the plate end, we gather the following from the best executed works in boiler plate. See fig. 118.