What’s the Difference?
Posted on 05/01/2017 | by The Orbitform Blog Team
The flush self-pierce riveting process is often compared to and confused with clinching. Clinching is a reliable and well known metal assembly process used in a variety of fastening applications, however there are assembly applications where the flush self-pierce riveting permanent assembly process has advantages over clinching.
The most obvious factor differentiating flush self-pierce riveting versus clinching is the metal stick-out from a clinched joint. The clinching process results in the top section of metal being pushed into the lower sheet of metal with a small bit of the lower metal actually protruding through. Thus, clinching does not result in a flush joint. In applications where the final joint needs to be smooth and flush, such as in air flow through HVAC systems or in appliance products when the human touch factor is important, the flush self-pierce rivet method outperforms clinching.
Clinching can sometimes lead to more corrosion and there is certainly additional metal deformation associated with the clinching fastening method versus flush self-pierce riveting. The clinching process can also be challenging when fastening pre-painted or pre-coated metal materials as the deformation involved with clinching can impact the final quality of the paint / coating. An advantage of flush self-pierce rivet machines is the fact that a pre-painted self-piercing rivet can be used to assemble the metal sheets and the paint on the rivet can be matched to the paint on the metal being joined.
Clearly there are metal assembly applications where clinching makes a lot of sense. There are also metal joining projects where the aesthetic factors, strength requirements, corrosion resistance, and ending flush joint benefits stack up to allow flush self-pierce riveting to shine.
To learn more about Flush Self-Pierce Rivet machines built by Orbitform, please click here.