Stainless Rivets Solve Window Problem
Stainless steel rivets to replace aluminum ones.
By Carroll McCormick
Nickel Magazine, November 2004 -- Singapore’s Building and
Construction Authority (BCA), together with the Asian republic’s Housing and Development Board (HDB), has
launched a program to replace nine million aluminum rivets with stainless steel ones in the windows in 43,000
HBD flats.
Between 2000 and 2003, at least 190 window cases installed by HBD fell out of flats because aluminum
rivets failed to hold the friction stays in the window casements. Corrosion and wear-and-tear, as windows are
opened and closed, caused the failures. To solve the problem, the BCA is retrofitting using more durable and
corrosion-resistant stainless steel rivets.
The stainless rivets, which vary in length from 10 to 17 millimetres (mm) and are 4.8 mm in diameter, will
be made from
S30400. All have in a tensile strength roughly three times that of the aluminum rivets.
The aluminum rivets were used for installing casement windows between 1987 and 1998 under the
then-prevailing industry standards in Singapore and in effect internationally, according to HBD. Revised
industry standards specifying stainless rivets were adopted in 2000, though HBD switched to using them in
1998. The replacement program will run from March 2004 to February 2005.
Carroll McCormick is a Montreal-based freelance writer.
PHOTOS: PHOTOS.COM
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