Page 40 - Australasian paint & Panel Sep-Oct 2021

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OEM focus
PAINT&PANEL SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2021
WWW.PAINTANDPANEL.COM.AU
in 1998 with Audi the first to use alumini- um in a production car - albeit a luxury one - the A8. While it took a few years for alu- minium usage to become more common, the use of this material demanded a differ- ent approach again in the repair sector.
“It wasn’t just that you couldn’t use a spot welder and you had to have mig/mag equipment, but you need the special tools and equipment, the protective curtains and the right dust extraction,” Knappe said.
So then they faced the
problem of how to reproduce this riveting
technology in a workshop. So, you can’t weld and you can’t use adhesive..”
Fast forward to around 2010 and the car companies just threw out the rule book and introduced mixed material body construction.
“The inside of the door is steel and the outside is aluminium or plastic. Then you have a problem - the melting point of steel is around 1500 degrees Celsius and the melting point of aluminium is around 660 degrees Celsius. If the aluminium is melt- ing then the steel is smiling, if the steel is melting then the aluminium is gone.”
Mercedes Benz begqn to use riveting in its factory production employing large riv- eting robots to punch them in. “So then they faced the problem of how to reproduce this riveting technology in a workshop. So, you can’t weld and you can’t use adhesive. The cars may go to Sweden where it is very cold or to Saudi Arabia where it’s very hot so adhesive on its own won’t work because of the different atmospheric conditions. Their solution was riveting and to use glue in between - not to reinforce the structure but to avoid contact corrosion between the two metals,” said Knappe.
“Mercedes Benz asked us to develop a small light, powerful riveting tool to re- place the big robots in the factory. In order to produce enough force, hydraulic and pneumatic power we combined and we developed our power pack for the XPress.
We had to develop a small cylinder that could punch with a force in excess of six tons.”
An immense amount of destructive
testing goes on in the development pro- cess and there’s a formula to work out the precise dimensions. “Self piercing rivets don’t need a hole, but flow form rivets need a hole in both panels but the hole must but be precise. With a normal drill it’s not possible to achieve this, so we have developed the system to punch to the ex- act OEM specifications. The adapters and dies are interchangeable within the XSeries - the product family of our riveting technology. Every thickness of the mate- rial needs a special rivet so we have rivets from 1.0mm up to 4.3mm and each one is different,” says Knappe.
“Riveting is not like welding where you can set up the machine and away you go. With riveting you need to use your brain and follow the OEM repair methods exactly. There is no margin for error or for guessing.
“Your welding knowledge doesn’t help you with riveting - it’s a process you have to master separately.”
The required force for rivets started off at five tons, then in comes Tesla to the market and stipulates 8 tons. Not to be
outdone, Jaguar/Landrover now requires 12 tons and WS have been approached by another OEM that is specifying 22 tons.
WS has stayed ahead of the technolo- gy curve and its collision repair offer- ings have grown accordingly.
“That was also at the request of an OEM who said ‘we need to have a cheap solu- tion for a riveting system” Knappe said.
There’s the more affordable new rivet- ing system that only punches and has no pulling function. The dies are interchange- able with the XSeries.
As well as a new range of tools to help technicians safely repair electric vehicles, the company also offers a mixed material bay solution. Its comes with everything you need to safely carry out work includ- ing LED lights, security curtains, welding solutions, large and small riveting ma- chines and the necessary dust extraction.
Wieländer+Schill equipment is available from SAPE. Visit: Sape.com.au
TOP: Mixed material bay total solution. ABOVE: Nearly 50 years of engineering ingenuity at WS.