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Profil RSN and RND rivet nuts utilised by Audi

A Profil UK product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Sep 17, 2008

Profil has announced that its RSN and RND rivet nuts have been specified by Audi for use in a safety-critical bonnet latch mounting application on its A4 and A5 vehicles.

The fasteners are installed in 0.8mm thick high tensile strength steel beams that are subsequently over-moulded in 30 per cent glass reinforced Polyamide 6 to form an integral part of each vehicle's impact crumple zone.

The thermoplastic material fine tunes the cross beam assembly's deformation characteristics and provides the required mounting points for other ancillary equipment, such as radiators, headlamps and air conditioning units.

The RSN and RND nuts, which are fully encapsulated during the moulding process, were primarily selected for their proven performance in high strength materials.

Profil fasteners are already employed in similar applications at other leading motor manufacturers, where they have demonstrated their suitability for production use with up to 1200 MPa steels.

By utilising the base material's work hardening properties, the fasteners can often produce stronger joints than would be expected from the original component alone.

In the Audi application, the vehicle bonnet catch assemblies are located by the RSN nuts alone and are secured using self-locking, M10 thread rolling bolts.

Accordingly, the accurate positioning of installed fasteners was a further key selection criterion.

Through their placement as part of the presswork process, Profil fasteners routinely maintain positional tolerances of +0.20mm.

The insertion speeds and integrity of pierce fastening methods are greater than for welded alternatives, which are prone to material variations and surface contamination.

Find out more about this article. Request a brochure, download technical specifications and request samples here.

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