Why did bolts replace rivets in buildings?

Answer 1

The quality of a bolt is more consistent than that of a rivet. As buildings grew taller and as building code safety became more important the bolt was necessary for architects to be able to certify the quality of the construction.

Answer 2

Expense was the motivation but safety and reliability are other good reasons. You do not need the guy that heats the rivets and throws them to the guy that inserts them and holds them while another guy "peens" the end over to hold it in place. Depending on the guys abilities the rivets can be tight or loose and in the case of the guy that throws them and the guy that catches them how successful they are. LOOK OUT BELOW!!!. I am sure if a nut or bolt or washer hits you it would hurt a bit but add heated to cherry red to that and you have an injury or even a fire if it would fall onto something flammable. It is also faster to insert a bolt and tighten the nut to a preset torque.

Answer 3

largely because bolts became cheaper to produce, and are intrinsically more reliable because of 1) quality of steel used 2) no real deformation imposed during installation - torque to spec is way better than whacking away at a red hot slug of iron... 3) speed of installation - bolt - once girders are lined up - 1 minute, one man. Rivet - one to heat, one to catch, one to pickup and position, one to hold the backer/anvil, and another to whack at the thing to get it flattened in place. And the time - still around a minute, less the time spent keeping the nasty little things yellow hot... just at least 4 if not more men are involved in getting the rivet prepared, delivered, and installed - at the girder.
Bolt cheap, no on-site preparation required. Rivet - work of art, labor intensive, needs a level of skill few would embrace these days. Bolt -replaceable during maintenance. Rivet - way less so, can be done but it is a real pain in the butt.

Answer 4

all fasteners will become loose over time. rivets must be drilled out and replaced, which can be difficult and dangerous in a finished building. bolts can be retightened to exactly the same specifications that the architect needed for the calculations to work.

also, rivets cannot be hardened and tempered properly to set a specific level of hardness. bolts can be heat-treated at the factory where they are made so that they have specific ratios of the two different crystaline forms of steel.

Answer 5

Much less labor hours to install bolts, washers and nuts.
Bolts can be consistently tightened to pre-set torque limits using air wrenches much faster than rivets being hammered.
Bolts can be specified to various strengths / grades, depending on type of steel used. I would imagine rivets have a narrow range of grades.

Answer 6

They still use rivets also, they both have their own function.

Answer 7

if a rivert is loose you have to cut it out too replace and a bolt you can tighten

Answer 8

You can tighten bolts

Answer 9

They are stronger and can be tightened to a finer tolerance.

Answer 10

stregnth, ability to remove/replace. you know things like that