Field Rivet Demonstration at Lansing Community College West Campus

#60 Boyer pneumatic field rivet hammer air charged, gas forge heating rivets to 1600F, pneumatic holder-on ready to grip a heated rivet while the shank is hammered to form a button head shape.

Students from Scott Poe’s advanced welding class learned how the massive, shop-fabricated bridge towers with millions of shop-driven rivets were constructed and how the ironworkers field-riveted the tower sections together during erection of the bridge.

Field rivet demonstrations at Lansing Community College West Campus give a younger generation of craftsmen and women an opportunity to witness an industrial process no longer used in steel fabrication. Riveting is an industrial process that many in the engineering community today have little knowledge of, yet civil engineers and the students who drove rivets during the LCC field rivet demonstration will likely encounter riveted structures during their careers. There are many famous riveted bridges across the USA currently in use, and knowledge of the way they were constructed is important for their maintenance and repair.

A major issue is the lack of knowledge of the differences between shop-driven rivets and field-driven rivets. Most riveting in the shop during fabrication used rivet machines, power driven using hydraulic pressure or compressed air. (Driving rivets in the shop with a hand-held pneumatic hammer was only done when unavoidable.) On the other hand, during erection of a bridge, the pre-fabricated riveted members were connected with field riveting, the connections designed to take into account the difference between field- and shop-driven rivets. (PSI shear and bearing values of power driven rivets were higher than hand driven rivets*.)

Vern Mesler, 2024

*Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, volume 97 1933