Joining technology


The joining technology is used in any type of mechanical joint which is the arrangement formed by two or more elements: typically, two physical parts and a joining element. The mechanical joining systems make possible to form a set of several pieces using the individual parts and the corresponding joining elements. There are fixed sets and removable sets.
Most common utensils are made up of sets of parts. The study of mechanical joints is essential to ensure the proper functioning of the mentioned assemblies.”.

Types of unions

Metallic materials

Wood

The joints between pieces of wood, between materials similar to joint effects and combined materials can be various. If the parts to be joined include metals, ceramic materials or polymers, the joints can be more elaborate.

Joints

Joints of two pieces of wood. A mortise determines the shape of the ends of the two pieces of wood to be joined. Some of traditional joints are listed below:
Often the handle of traditional tools are wedged and forced. Sometimes with a skinny type bailer or similar.
Some manufactured items are made from a raw material using self unions, that is: unions without using other joining materials.

Neolithic

The replacement of cut stone tools by polished stone tools is not the most important innovation, although it is the one that gives the period its name. The diversification of tasks that needed to be done explains that the first farmers had to create new specific tools for each function. Most utensils were made of flint with a wooden handle, others were made of bone and animal horn. They made pottery to store food, fabric for clothing with wool and linen, musical instruments, et cetera.
The mortice and tenon coupling was used to join the planks of the ancient Greek ships with double box and false wick. This set was fixed with a wooden peg on each side. The construction system of the large ships of antiquity was of Phoenician origin. The Romans called it "Phoenician chains".

Bronze Age

iron age

Phoenicians and Carthaginians

The mortice and tenon coupling was used to join the planks of the ancient Greek ships with double box and false wick. This set was fixed with a wooden peg on each side. The construction system of the large ships of antiquity was of Phoenician origin. The Romans called it "Phoenician joints".

Ancient Egypt

The images show three material assemblies representing three mechanical joints and the corresponding joint elements. The first example, a solar boat, recalls the sewn joints of the wooden pieces that make up the boat's hull. In this particular case the joints were reinforced with box and wick fittings. The second example is that of the wheels of a war chariot. The button of a wheel was formed by the union of the six "vertices" of six pieces of wood - each bent at an angle - so that each spoke was formed by the union of two arms of contiguous angular pieces. The third example is based on the funerary mask of Tutankhamun and shows a kind of soft welding for metals.

Ancient Greece

Classical Greek culture offers many examples of ensembles made up of pieces mechanically joined together. The following sets are randomly presented: a hoplite spear, a hoplite shield, a mechanical system for chariot racing, the Antikythera mechanism, and general war machines.
In figure 1 you can see a Greek spear made up of three parts: the tip, the shaft and the shaft. This set involves two unions.

Viking Era

The ships of the Vikings, the drakkars, had tingled hulls.
The juxtaposed lath system was the most popular on the Mediterranean coast. Boats, oxen, gussies and ships of great harbor had ships according to this arrangement. The tingled can method was typical of the Atlantic coasts. An example would be the ships of the Vikings, the drakkars. The method of sewing the tins was followed in various parts of the world, with examples in the Nordic countries and on the coasts of the Indian Ocean.
The union of two planks in a drakkar was secured by means of iron rivets. The tightness was obtained with moss or wool impregnated with resin or glue.

Patents

Since about the fifteenth century, joining technologies have been the subject of patents and similar actions. Here follows a small, random sample, arranged chronologically. The listed patents include assembly tools for mounting or tightening fasteners.