Riveted and Welded Joints:

A steel structure may have any size or shape depending upon the design requirements. Therefore, the component members are manufactured and marketed only in a few definite shapes and sizes. Thus, they have to be joined together to produce the desired final structural form. Those joints or connections play an extremely important role in steel design, and that have to be strong and rigid enough to transmit all the forces and moments from one member to another. Failure of a joint is as bad as the failure of a member and can render the entire structure unsuitable for use. Thus, special attention is necessary in design and fabrication of these joints.

In steel structures, mainly two types of joints are found, namely riveted joints and welded joints. Within the former case, holes of the required diameter are drilled through the members to be joined and the rivets are then driven into these holes. In the latter case, molten metal is deposited, joining the members at the joints by special electric or gas heating appliances, thereby gluing the two members together. We shall study the fabrication and design of riveted and welded joints.

Objectives

After studying this unit, you should be able to

• Define the various types of rivets, and their uses,
• Elaborates the allowable working stresses and strength characteristics of these rivets,
• Define the various types of riveted joints and the causes and types of their failures,
• Define the design assumptions and design methods for riveted joints in light of various Indian Standard recommendations,
• Denotes the efficiency of riveted joints,
• Know welding as a structural connection, its advantages and disadvantages,
• Design several types of welded joints, and
• Design welded connections along with or without eccentric loads.