Pressure to Head Standard Steel Rivets Hot Diameter Inches Area Sq.In. Pressure Kips Force Required Metric pounds Tons Size kg 3/32" .094 .0069 150 1035 0.5 2.38 mm 474 1/8" .125 .0123 150 1,841 .92 3.18 mm 835 3/16" .188 .0276 150 4,142 2.1 4.76 mm 1879 1/4" .250 .0491 150 7,365 3.7 6.35 mm 3341 5/16" .313 .0767 150 11,505 5.8 7.94 mm 5219 3/8" .375 .110 150 16,567 8.3 9.53 mm 7515 7/16" .413 .134 150 20,095 10 11.1mm 9115 1/2" .500 .196 150 29,452 15 12.7 mm 13359 9/16" .563 .249 150 37,342 19 14.3 mm 16938 5/8" .625 .307 150 46,019 23 15.9 mm 20874 11/16" .688 .371 150 55,684 28 17.5 mm 25258 3/4" .750 .442 150 66,268 33 19.1 mm 30059 13/16" .813 .519 150 77,869 39 20.6 mm 35321 7/8" .875 .601 150 90,198 45 22.2 mm 40913 15/16" .938 .690 150 103,544 52 23.8 mm 46967 1" 1.00 .785 150 117,810 59 25.4 mm 53438 Copyright © 2004 Jock Dempsey This chart was created because it exists no where else. We looked in MACHINERY'S HANDBOOK old and new (1968 - 2004), the AISC Steel Construction Manual, 7th Edition, Metalwork technology and Practice, the ASM Forging Manual, the Industrial Fasteners Institute Fastener Standards, The Handbook of Fastening and Joining of Metal Parts - McGraw Hill and the The ASTE Tool Engineers Handbook, 1949. None of these addressed this question. We finally found a reference in Marks' Mechanical Engineers Handbook, Sixth Edition, 1958, Rivets, Pressure in driving, 8-4. This stated that to drive steel rivets hot requires 150,000 PSI or more. Cold heading requires roughly double this force and is only applicable to high strength materials. Cold heading should also use a modified cone head rather then round.

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