Effect of hole perpendicularity error and squeeze force on the mechanical behaviors of riveted joints

In the automatic drilling and riveting process, the perpendicular error of the hole is inevitable, which has a great influence on the assembly quality. In the current research, the shear and pull-out behaviors of riveted joints under different perpendicularity errors and squeeze forces were investigated and compared by the quasi-static tests. The fracture of the failed samples was characterized by a scanning electron microscope and the formation process of fracture was discussed. The failure mechanisms of riveted joints were analyzed in detail to guide engineering applications. The test results demonstrated that the shear load and pull-out load of riveted joints increased slightly with the increase of the tilt angle from 0° to 4°. The perpendicularity error did not affect the shear and pull-out failure modes of the riveted joints. However, the squeeze force had a significant effect on the failure modes of the pull-out samples. Fracture analysis showed that the failure of all shear samples occurred at the rivet shaft. Besides, when the squeeze force increased from 15 kN to 23 kN, the failure modes of the pull-out samples changed from the sheet to the rivet itself.