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Date: | Fri, 23 Apr 2010 07:17:27 -0400 |
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We were recently asked if we could sample rivets and the infrastructure
engineer suggested that we could cut their heads off w/ an angle grinder
(they seem to like angle grinders like some folks like duct tape) and
then bash the rivet out. That immediately caused me to have suspicions
as to the sanity of the engineer and put in question the entire RFP as
possibly being a snipe hunt -- but a really neat structure to work on so
now what? What I have determined is that to cut a rivet w/ a grinder
risks overheating the rivet and thus test results may be skewed on any
rivets so obtained... let alone bashing rivets to try to get them out of
their holes makes no sense to me either in feasibility or as to what
would be left over when we got done w/ that. His comment to that is we
would be surprised. I am sure we would be surprised but I asked him if
he wanted 5 rivets for samples then how many would we have to bash
before we stopped being surprised? Samples for what?
So I got ahold of Patrick Sparks in Texas whom I know works on wrought
iron and steel bridges (he had posted some really neat re-rivet vids on
FB) and he recommended a mag drill w/ a special bit to core through the
plate and not destroy/damage/alter the rivet. That came in about $3,000
for 5 rivets, not accounting for our need to use a bungee cord and wet
suit to access the desired extraction locations. But he also asked,
"Samples for what?" He suggested a hand-held portable hardness tester
(Mic 10)... those are not particularly cheap to obtain and not as
accessible as a DVD frm NetFlix. The engineer suggested renting one...
from where I'm still trying to figure that out, certainly not Home
Depot. Having one in our hands and going around pinging rivets will not
suddenly mean that we know what we are doing... so I also have to find
someone that knows what they are doing?
Samples for what? Increasingly I find out that we need to ask that
question up front. Turns out for tensile strength. We figure out and
discuss in the field that even with a less invasive extraction
methodology that what we will end up with in our hands might not clamp
into a tensile testing machine.
Then this morning I wake up and I have a need-to-know question for BP.
Do rivets work in compression or tension or both?
Thnx,
][<en
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