Issue Selecting Correct Rivets

[eski1]

I'm looking for some help with selecting the correct riveting procedure for a project I'm working on.
We are making some Stillages from 2.5mm Galvanised Steel to hold Scaffold Metal pipes. The stillages are approximately 3m long by 0.8m x 0.8m in size and i have attached a picture of an end of one just to get the idea. In total the stillage has to be load rated to 2000kg. We have designed this to be a assembled together modular item i.e. all made out of profiles , folded then galvanised & fitted together as this will help it be more scalable . Rather than use bolts to connect all the panels together we wish to use Rivets so the finished item can't be easily disassembled. Historically we have always used pop rivets in our factory but feel we need a better solution for this application due to there being some higher Shear loads on the rivet and ideally need the rivet to be fairly smooth both sides of the sheet as people will have their hands come in contact with these I'm sure as part of loading and unloading the metal scaffold tubes.

We have no experience of any rivets apart from pop rivets so any advice would be appreciated including how to fit them.
Thanks in advance
Chris

 

[EdStainless]

Have you considered clinching? One brand is RivClinch and TOX is another.
Messing with individual rivets is a lot of bother.
And for these loads and reliability you would really need solid rivets.
Have you considered adhesive?

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P.E. Metallurgy, consulting work welcomed

 

[eski1]

Hi

Thanks for the reply
I must admit i haven't heard of this method before and although i really like it i can maybe see a couple of issues with our construction namely
1) Our Joins could be as much as 700mm down into a sheet so would need a bespoke machine setup to be able to perform this.
The sheet panels would need assembly post Galvanising so we would be worried that the galvanising would chip off during this process leaving areas exposed to corrosion.

Thinking Solid Rivets might not suffer from the above issues but again the material of these rivets would need to such that Corrosion doesn't occur still.

Would anyone know a good source of Rivet information from a UK Supplier?