Invention of Flush Riveting

[terrye]

During the course of building my RV-9A I became curious about the history of the flush rivet (and there are lots of them in the RV-9A airframe). By chance, I happened across a book ?What Engineers Know and How They Know It ? Analytical Studies from Aeronautical History? by Walter G. Vincenti. Chapter 6 provides such a history, it is titled ?Design and Production: The Innovation of Flush Riveting in American airplanes, 1930-1950?. The need for flush riveting resulted from the increasing speeds of aluminum airplanes during this period. Vincenti traces the development of the flush rivet through the pioneering companies of the Hall Aluminum Aircraft Corporation, Douglas Aircraft, Northrop Aircraft, Bell Aircraft, Curtiss-Wright Corporation, with the assistance of NACA. Interestingly, the now standard 100 degree head angle was not a given, early rivets ranged from 78 degrees to 130 degrees. Tooling for machine countersinking and dimpling had to be invented, and extensive testing had to be done to guarantee the strength of flush riveted joints. New rivet sets and compression riveters had to be invented. The chapter has an extensive bibliography of 61 references for further reading.

Of the eight chapters in the book, several others may be of interest to RV builders. Chapter 3 is about the development of flying qualities requirements from 1918 to 1943 and Chapter 5 is about air propeller tests 1916 to 1926.

[Wunderon]

sounds very good thanks for the mention

[bob woods]

It?s my understanding Howard Hughes invented flush riveting ? Hughes h1 racer was the first flush riveted airplane ? In my opinion the most beautiful airplane ever.

[terrye]

Originally Posted by bob woods

It?s my understanding Howard Hughes invented flush riveting ? Hughes h1 racer was the first flush riveted airplane ?

Howard Hughes was excellent at self promotion, but he doesn't get a mention for the invention of flush riveting in Vincenti's book. And the H1 wasn't the first but perhaps one of the best known.

[bob woods]

Terrye
I googled first flush riveted airplane and a couple of sources say this is true including a Boeing article.

[az_gila]

#4 here.... http://aviationweek.com/technology-m...images-1428111

The Hall flying boat may not be as pretty as the H-1 Racer but it flew 6 years earlier with flush rivets...

[scsmith]

Walter Vincenti's book is indeed fantastic. A primary tenant of the book is that Engineering is a unique discipline in itself, not simply applied science. The individual chapters in the book are case studies of how engineers approach their work, and what makes the engineering process distinct from simply applying known scientific principles.

Both my father and I had the good fortune of studying under Dr Vincenti. He is a wonderful guy who made significant contributions to aeronautics, as well as the role of engineering, science, and technology in society. He is still alive, and I was honored to attend a lecture on the Wright Brothers that he gave on the occasion of his 95th birthday. That was right around the time I retired, so he must be over 100 now.

Thanks for posting. Yes the chapter on flush riveting is very interesting. As routine a process it is now that we all do, it was surprising to me how fraught with early problems it was.

Originally Posted by terrye

During the course of building my RV-9A I became curious about the history of the flush rivet (and there are lots of them in the RV-9A airframe). By chance, I happened across a book ?What Engineers Know and How They Know It ? Analytical Studies from Aeronautical History? by Walter G. Vincenti. Chapter 6 provides such a history, it is titled ?Design and Production: The Innovation of Flush Riveting in American airplanes, 1930-1950?. The need for flush riveting resulted from the increasing speeds of aluminum airplanes during this period. Vincenti traces the development of the flush rivet through the pioneering companies of the Hall Aluminum Aircraft Corporation, Douglas Aircraft, Northrop Aircraft, Bell Aircraft, Curtiss-Wright Corporation, with the assistance of NACA. Interestingly, the now standard 100 degree head angle was not a given, early rivets ranged from 78 degrees to 130 degrees. Tooling for machine countersinking and dimpling had to be invented, and extensive testing had to be done to guarantee the strength of flush riveted joints. New rivet sets and compression riveters had to be invented. The chapter has an extensive bibliography of 61 references for further reading.

Of the eight chapters in the book, several others may be of interest to RV builders. Chapter 3 is about the development of flying qualities requirements from 1918 to 1943 and Chapter 5 is about air propeller tests 1916 to 1926.