SEDL / STP / STP203-EB / STP46290S

Riveted-Joints Fatigue Strength

Smith, C. R.
Design Specialist, and Research Test Engineer, Division of General Dynamics Corp., San Diego, Calif.

Lindeneau, G. D.
Design Specialist, and Research Test Engineer, Division of General Dynamics Corp., San Diego, Calif.

Pages: 19    Published: Jan 1957

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Abstract

The results of fatigue tests and strain measurements on riveted joints are presented. It was found that in addition to rivet pattern, thickness of splice plates played an important part. An improvement in fatigue strength of butt joints was obtained by laminating the splice plate so that the first row of rivets engaged only the first of the laminates. The increase in life was attributed to a decrease in bending stress at the first row of rivets, and to a more equal load distribution between the first and second row of rivets. It was also found that static overloading prior to fatigue testing was harmful in some cases and beneficial in others—harmful where the overload was just sufficient to cause relaxing of the residual stress set up by riveting and beneficial where it was carried high enough to cause redistribution of the load between rivets.