WEST LAFAYETTE, IN-Commercial airliners have up to a million rivets, some of which are inevitably created with imperfections that make them susceptible to corrosion, leading to cracks that can result in serious failures. This is the case whether the rivets are installed manually or by automated machines.
Identifying flawed rivets has historically been extremely difficult. But researchers at Purdue University, working in concert with the U.S. Air Force, recently unveiled a system for tracking rivet quality by using sensors attached to the guns installing the rivet. Findings about the method were detailed in a paper presented July 7 during the Second European Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring in Munich, Germany.