This talk will cover the general principles of Friction Riveting, showing the investigation of material combinations relevant for industrial applications, from transportation and civil engineering to small-scale electronic components. Friction Riveting is based on mechanical fastening and friction welding principles, where a cylindrical metallic rivet is joined to polymer-metal multi-material layer structures through frictional heat and force [1]. Friction riveting feasibility studies have been conducted for various materials such as unreinforced and reinforced polymer, carbon, and fiberglass laminates joined with aluminium and titanium rivets [2-4]. Friction riveted joints characterization provided information on joint formation, anchoring efficiency, process temperature evolution, microstructural changes, mechanical performance, and aspects related to the materials' physical-chemical properties.

The process has been mainly investigated for featureless cylindrical 5 mm diameter rivets. Therefore, different geometrical aspects, such as rivet diameters and consequent effects on process energy input and rivet tip geometry, need a deeper understanding. Recent studies have shown Friction Riveting as an efficient alternative to the state-of-the-art joining techniques (traditional fasteners) with advantages such as no pre-drilling, reduced number of process steps, and rivet access from one side of the plate, and performance [1,3]. Successful joints were achieved with significant deformation at the rivet tip inserted into overlapped printed circuit boards laminates with thicknesses below 3.0 mm, considered the lowest achieved so far with Friction Riveting [5].

This talk covers case studies showing technology transfer aspects for industrial applications like suitable load combinations and environments, corrosion, and scalability aspects. The current knowledge in Friction Riveting asserts the process for increased TRLs in transportation and civil engineering. Nonetheless, even though it has been successfully proven that it can be applied even to thermosetting composites, interfaces have to be further characterized and optimized for sensitive applications like aeronautics or electronics.