The application called for two significant features: a high strength, dependable fastening capable of firmly attaching climbing ‘handles’ to a polyester/glassfibre climbing wall, but which would also allow the handles to be removed and reinstalled swiftly should the need arise.
This need for ‘instant’ demountability, coupled with the demand for high pull-out strength and absolute fastening integrity, presented a unique challenge to the Böllhoff engineering team. They tested a variety of potential solutions prior to delivering a proposal that saw M10 RIVKLE rivet nuts specified as the safest and most practical solution for attaching the handles.
RIVKLE was developed specifically for applications requiring a high load-bearing (threaded) blind fastening with exceptional pull-out resistance when used in thin-walled materials – as here with the climbing wall. Essentially a rivet nut set into a special elastomer or thermoplastic material, RIVKLE is inserted into a drilled hole in the host material and held in place by unique clamping nodules until the threaded fastener (in this case attaching the climbing handle) is torqued up as required.
Since the metal part of the nut is only joined to the elastomer in the lower area of the fastener, as it is tightened a bulge forms against the inner face of the host material. This feature helps to provide the load distribution and pull-out resistance for which RIVKLE is recognised and which the climbers clearly see as beneficial.
In addition to specialist applications, such as the climbing wall described here, RIVKLE is also found in many general industrial, as well as automotive applications. Design engineers have been won over by its additional attributes of good vibration and noise dampening, together with electrical and thermal insulation and tolerance compensation. Concurrently, production teams have praised RIVKLE for its ease of installation and ongoing re-usability.
