Heat staking plastics

Requirements for the component design

If the heat staking process is chosen, the first step is to check whether the component is fundamentally suitable for the defined heat staking technology, i.e. whether it is optimally designed.

bdtronic offers standard tools that represent an optimal riveting as a compromise between low cycle time and maximum strength. For this purpose, there are recommendations for the different processes in the form of design guidelines, which also specify the dimensions to be taken into account for the necessary clearance area, the gap size in the joining partner, and the interference contours, so that accessibility on the components can be ensured for the tools. Special sizes and lengths are always possible. 

In addition, there must be a stable, ideally flat, and supported surface underneath the rivet pin to absorb the riveting forces. To check the feasibility and reproducibility of riveting, a tolerance consideration should be made. The more complex an assembly is before riveting, the higher the assembly tolerance-related volume and position fluctuations can be.

Already in the design phase, it can be checked whether the complexity and thus the price of a production equipment can be controlled via the design. For example, it is advisable to consider the minimum distances between riveting points that are necessary per technology per riveting head or punch. In the case of product variants, the rivet positions should be kept uniform so that a rivet assembly can be used for processing the variants without tool changes. Otherwise, tool changes are possible in principle, but may require changeover times of 15 minutes or more.