Rivets

Whether you’re concerned about rivet flushness, corrosion ingress, or fatigue, rivets are a concern in both aviation and waterborne craft repair and inspection.

The particular challenges of measuring rivets are clear:

• Stroke: A line profile, especially a standard 4 mm stylus profile, won’t cover most rivets
• Area: The inspection needs to be over the entire surface — a 3D profile.
• Sample Size: To measure a significant sample of the thousands of rivets on a surface like a wing is a time-consuming challenge. High throughput is needed.
• Part Size: One doesn’t simply place a wing or a ship, under a microscope to obtain a 3D optical profile. A portable solution is needed.

The large, 0.6″ x 0.6″ (15 x 15 mm), field of view of the 4D InSpec XL is large enough to fully measure many common rivets, whether raised or countersunk rivets. The gauge’s ability to measure heights of up to 0.35″ (9 mm) is also critical in ensuring a complete image of the data.

In the screenshot above, a 0.35 inch-diameter rivet (seen in the camera view on the left) is measured in a single data set. While a 3D plot is shown, the automatic feature analysis software can easily show if any portion of this rivet is out of spec, or if it has a defect.

The standard 4D InSpec has a field of view of 0.3 inches square, and depth of field of 0.1 inches tall. It may be suitable for some rivets, and offers a smaller “nose” to get into tighter spaces. We’ll help choose the gauge that suits your rivet best.