Hydraulic riveting has demonstrated not only that the work could be as well done without a blow, but that it could be better done without a blow, and that the riveted material was stronger when so secured than when subjected to the more severe treatment under impact.
What is manifestly required in perfect riveting is that the metal of the rivet while hot and plastic shall be made to flow into all the irregularities of the rivet holes in the boiler sheets; that the surplus metal be formed into heads as large as need be, and that the pressure used to produce these results should not be in excess of what the metal forming the boiler shall be capable of resisting.
It is well known that metals, when subjected, either cold or hot, to sufficient pressure, will obey almost exactly the same laws as fluids under similar conditions, and will flow into and fill all the crevices of the chamber or cavity in which they are contained. If, therefore, a hot rivet is inserted into the holes made in a boiler to receive it, and is then subjected to a sufficient pressure, it will fill every irregularity of the holes, and thus fulfill one of the conditions of perfect riveting. This result it is impossible to accomplish with perfection or certainty by ordinary hand riveting, in doing which the intermittent blows of an ordinary hammer are used to force the metal into the holes. With a hydraulic riveting machine, however, an absolutely uniform and continuous pressure can be imparted to each rivet, so as to force the hot metal of the rivet into all the irregularities of the holes in the same way as a hydraulic ram will cause water to fill any cavity, however irregular.
FIG. 18.
In order to illustrate the relative advantages of machine over hand riveting, two plates were riveted together, the holes of which were purposely made so as not to match perfectly. These plates were then planed through the center of the rivets, so as to expose a section of both the plates and rivets. From this an impression was taken with printer's ink on paper and then transferred to a wooden block, from which Figs. 17 and 18 were made.
The machine-driven rivet is marked a, and b represents the hammered rivet.
It will be observed that the machine rivet fills the hole completely, while the hand rivet is very imperfect. This experiment was tried several times, with similar results each time.
The hand rivet, it will be observed, filled up the hole very well immediately under the head formed by the hammer; but sufficient pressure could not be given to the metal—or at least it could not be transferred far enough—to affect the metal at some distance from the driven head. So great is this difficulty that in hand riveting much shorter rivets must be used, because it is impossible to work effectively so large a mass of metal with hammers as with a machine. The heads of the machine rivets are, therefore, larger and stronger, and will hold the plates together more firmly than the smaller hammered heads.
To drive rivets by hand, two strikers and one helper are needed in the gang, besides the boy who heats and passes the rivets; to drive each five-eighths inch rivet, an average of 250 blows of the hammer is needed, and the work is but imperfectly done. With a machine, two men handle the boiler, and one man works the machine; thus, with the same number of men as is required in riveting by hand, five rivets are driven each minute.