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Heat staking plastics

Srcoll

Heat staking technology

Heat staking plastics

Whether PEEK, LCP, PPS or PPA: all thermoplastic materials can be processed with bdtronic's heat staking processes, even with a high glass fibre content.

Which plastics can be riveted?  

Thermoplastics are divided into amorphous and semi-crystalline types. Partially crystalline plastics in particular, such as polyamides, polybutylene terephthalate, polyoxymethylenes or polypropylenes, must be processed at a fairly specific process temperature in order to achieve reproducible results. Heat staking systems from bdtronic have a highly developed temperature control that enables processing of these materials as well.

High-performance plastics often have a high melting point or contain various fillers, e.g. glass fibres, mineral fibres or aramid fibres. All these plastics, such as PPS-GF65, PPA-GF50, PA66-GF50 with a high filler content, or high-performance thermoplastics such as PEEK or PPS with a high processing temperature can be processed with the bdtronic heat staking technology. Joining partners can be made of the same or another thermoplastic material, metal, thermoset or FR4 (printed circuit board material). 

Contact our sales team

Sales worldwide
E-mail: sales@bdtronic.de
Tel.: +49 7934-104-0

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.

Request Design Guideline

bdtronic offers standard tools that represent an optimal riveting as a compromise between low cycle time and maximum strength. Request our design guidelines today!

Amorphous thermoplastics have a wider forming temperature range, i.e. the processing window is larger than for semi-crystalline plastics. Graphic according to TU Chemnitz.

With semi-crystalline materials, there is only a very small processing window in which the plastic can be formed (forming temperature range). Graphic according to TU Chemnitz.

Heat staking process

Technology center

Benefit from our expertise and many years of experience and develop the optimum process for your requirements together with us. We are specialists for different heat staking processes.

Develop the optimal process