[Bryan Wood]

Tonight I watched a show that was recorded last night called Modern Factories. The factory featured in this episode was the General Motors Plant where the Z06 Corvettes are built. One of the fasteners used on the car was self piercing rivets which were set into material that wasn't pre drilled and the finished product looked exactly like the flush rivets we use on our planes. The back of the rivet doesn't come all the way thru the back of the piece being joined but kind of swedges out and into the metal. It is most likely not suitable for aviation but it looks like a way for factories to quickly build wings if they proved strong enough. Does anybody have experience with these?

 

[Mike S]

In the old days we called them nails

 

[Mark Albery]

I've seen some presentations on them being developed for the aluminium Jaguars, and seen them being used at the Castle Bromwich factory (where many of the WW2 Spitfires were built).
They are very specific to the gauges and grades being joined, and are really only suitable for a production environment. It's fascinating to see how they don't actually fully pierce the lower panel, but splay and deform within the thickness of the material.
This presentation gives a good insight into how they work and will probably convince you that it isn't (yet) suitable for homebuilders.