Staking (manufacturing)

Last updated

Staking is the process of connecting two components by creating an interference fit between the two pieces. One workpiece has a hole in it while the other has a boss that fits within the hole. The boss is very slightly undersized so that it forms a slip fit. A staking punch is then used to expand the boss radially and to compress the boss axially so as to form an interference fit between the workpieces. This forms a permanent joint. [1]

Contents

Thermoplastic staking

Thermoplastic staking, also known as heat staking, is the same process except that it uses heat to deform the plastic boss, instead of cold forming. A plastic stud protruding from one component fits into a hole in the second component. The stud is then deformed through the softening of the plastic to form a head which mechanically locks the two components together. It is a versatile technique benefiting from being quick, economical and consistent. Unlike welding techniques, staking has the capacity to join plastics to other materials (e.g. metal, PCBs) in addition to joining like or dissimilar plastics, and it has the advantage over other mechanical joining methods in eliminating the need for consumables such as rivets and screws.

Technology

Thermoplastic staking can be performed with a wide variety of technologies, including:

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Forging</span> Metalworking process

Forging is a manufacturing process involving the shaping of metal using localized compressive forces. The blows are delivered with a hammer or a die. Forging is often classified according to the temperature at which it is performed: cold forging, warm forging, or hot forging. For the latter two, the metal is heated, usually in a forge. Forged parts can range in weight from less than a kilogram to hundreds of metric tons. Forging has been done by smiths for millennia; the traditional products were kitchenware, hardware, hand tools, edged weapons, cymbals, and jewellery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thermoplastic</span> Plastic that softens with heat and hardens on cooling

A thermoplastic, or thermosoft plastic, is any plastic polymer material that becomes pliable or moldable at a certain elevated temperature and solidifies upon cooling.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Metalworking</span> Process of making items from metal

Metalworking is the process of shaping and reshaping metals to create useful objects, parts, assemblies, and large scale structures. As a term it covers a wide and diverse range of processes, skills, and tools for producing objects on every scale: from huge ships, buildings, and bridges down to precise engine parts and delicate jewelry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Perforation</span> (Making) a small hole in a thin material

A perforation is a small hole in a thin material or web. There is usually more than one perforation in an organized fashion, where all of the holes collectively are called a perforation. The process of creating perforations is called perforating, which involves removing bits of the workpiece with a tool. Old-fashioned lick-and-stick postage stamps are perforated. When a tool makes small cuts in the material it's called 'rouletting', because that tool often resembles a roulette wheel, with blades around the edge. Raffle tickets are a good example of rouletting.

Induction welding is a form of welding that uses electromagnetic induction to heat the workpiece. The welding apparatus contains an induction coil that is energised with a radio-frequency electric current. This generates a high-frequency electromagnetic field that acts on either an electrically conductive or a ferromagnetic workpiece. In an electrically conductive workpiece, the main heating effect is resistive heating, which is due to induced currents called eddy currents. In a ferromagnetic workpiece, the heating is caused mainly by hysteresis, as the electromagnetic field repeatedly distorts the magnetic domains of the ferromagnetic material. In practice, most materials undergo a combination of these two effects.

A die is a specialized machine tool used in manufacturing industries to cut and/or form material to a desired shape or profile. Stamping dies are used with a press, as opposed to drawing dies and casting dies which are not. Like molds, dies are generally customized to the item they are used to create.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ultrasonic welding</span> Welding process

Ultrasonic welding is an industrial process whereby high-frequency ultrasonic acoustic vibrations are locally applied to work pieces being held together under pressure to create a solid-state weld. It is commonly used for plastics and metals, and especially for joining dissimilar materials. In ultrasonic welding, there are no connective bolts, nails, soldering materials, or adhesives necessary to bind the materials together. When used to join metals, the temperature stays well below the melting point of the involved materials, preventing any unwanted properties which may arise from high temperature exposure of the metal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plastic welding</span> Welding of semi-finished plastic materials

Plastic welding is welding for semi-finished plastic materials, and is described in ISO 472 as a process of uniting softened surfaces of materials, generally with the aid of heat. Welding of thermoplastics is accomplished in three sequential stages, namely surface preparation, application of heat and pressure, and cooling. Numerous welding methods have been developed for the joining of semi-finished plastic materials. Based on the mechanism of heat generation at the welding interface, welding methods for thermoplastics can be classified as external and internal heating methods, as shown in Fig 1.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Swaging</span> Metalworking process

Swaging is a forging process in which the dimensions of an item are altered using dies into which the item is forced. Swaging is usually a cold working process, but also may be hot worked.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heat sealer</span> Machine for joining thermoplastic materials using heat

A heat sealer is a machine used to seal products, packaging, and other thermoplastic materials using heat. This can be with uniform thermoplastic monolayers or with materials having several layers, at least one being thermoplastic. Heat sealing can join two similar materials together or can join dissimilar materials, one of which has a thermoplastic layer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Drawing (manufacturing)</span> Use of tensile forces to elongate a workpiece

Drawing is a manufacturing process that uses tensile forces to elongate metal, glass, or plastic. As the material is drawn (pulled), it stretches and becomes thinner, achieving a desired shape and thickness. Drawing is classified into two types: sheet metal drawing and wire, bar, and tube drawing. Sheet metal drawing is defined as a plastic deformation over a curved axis. For wire, bar, and tube drawing, the starting stock is drawn through a die to reduce its diameter and increase its length. Drawing is usually performed at room temperature, thus classified as a cold working process; however, drawing may also be performed at higher temperatures to hot work large wires, rods, or hollow tubes in order to reduce forces.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Punching</span> Creating a hole by forcing a tool through the workpiece

Punching is a forming process that uses a punch press to force a tool, called a punch, through the workpiece to create a hole via shearing. Punching is applicable to a wide variety of materials that come in sheet form, including sheet metal, paper, vulcanized fibre and some forms of plastic sheet. The punch often passes through the work into a die. A scrap slug from the hole is deposited into the die in the process. Depending on the material being punched this slug may be recycled and reused or discarded.

The heat deflection temperature or heat distortion temperature(HDT, HDTUL, or DTUL) is the temperature at which a polymer or plastic sample deforms under a specified load. This property of a given plastic material is applied in many aspects of product design, engineering and manufacture of products using thermoplastic components.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Threaded insert</span> Fastener element inserted into a hole to provide threading for screws

A threaded insert, also known as a threaded bushing, is a fastener element that is inserted into an object to add a threaded hole. They may be used to repair a stripped threaded hole, provide a durable threaded hole in a soft material, place a thread on a material too thin to accept it, mold or cast threads into a work piece thereby eliminating a machining operation, or simplify changeover from unified to metric threads or vice versa.

In metallurgy, cold forming or cold working is any metalworking process in which metal is shaped below its recrystallization temperature, usually at the ambient temperature. Such processes are contrasted with hot working techniques like hot rolling, forging, welding, etc. The same or similar terms are used in glassmaking for the equivalents; for example cut glass is made by "cold work", cutting or grinding a formed object.

Polymer engineering is generally an engineering field that designs, analyses, and modifies polymer materials. Polymer engineering covers aspects of the petrochemical industry, polymerization, structure and characterization of polymers, properties of polymers, compounding and processing of polymers and description of major polymers, structure property relations and applications.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Burnishing (metal)</span> Deformation of a metal surface due to friction

Burnishing is the plastic deformation of a surface due to sliding contact with another object. It smooths the surface and makes it shinier. Burnishing may occur on any sliding surface if the contact stress locally exceeds the yield strength of the material. The phenomenon can occur both unintentionally as a failure mode, and intentionally as part of a metalworking or manufacturing process. It is a squeezing operation under cold working.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hot working</span> Any metal shaping process occurring above its recrystallization temperature

In metallurgy, hot working refers to processes where metals are plastically deformed above their recrystallization temperature. Being above the recrystallization temperature allows the material to recrystallize during deformation. This is important because recrystallization keeps the materials from strain hardening, which ultimately keeps the yield strength and hardness low and ductility high. This contrasts with cold working.

Hot plate welding, also called heated tool welding, is a thermal welding technique for joining thermoplastics. A heated tool is placed against or near the two surfaces to be joined in order to melt them. Then, the heat source is removed, and the surfaces are brought together under pressure. Hot plate welding has relatively long cycle times, ranging from 10 seconds to minutes, compared to vibration or ultrasonic welding. However, its simplicity and ability to produce strong joints in almost all thermoplastics make it widely used in mass production and for large structures, like large-diameter plastic pipes. Different inspection techniques are implemented in order to identify various discontinuities or cracks.

IR welding is a welding technique that uses a non-contact heating method to melt and fuse thermoplastic parts together using the energy from infrared radiation. The process was first developed in the late 1900s, but due to the high capital cost of IR equipment the process was not commonly applied in industry until prices dropped in the 1990s. IR welding typically uses a range of wavelengths from 800 to 11,000 nm on the electromagnetic spectrum to heat, melt, and fuse the interface between two plastic parts through the absorption and conversion of the IR energy into heat. Laser welding is a similar joining process that applies IR radiation at a single wavelength.

References

  1. Degarmo, pp. 415–416.

Bibliography

Further reading