>>890015This is wrong and almost exactly the opposite of reality.
In reality, when you need to join two pieces of plate, a double row of rivets is the strongest way to do so. This is because of how force tends to spread out in long, wide, but relatively flat metal sections; stress produced at a point source tends to spread out, and by the time it reaches a seam is a very wide band of stress. Rivets get thier strength from the fact that they slip ever so slightly, perhaps a ten or hundred thousandth of an inch, but they do. The effect this has is to load all rivets in a seam equally, so that if a seam is to break under normal conditions, all rivets will have to break at the same time. In addition, if one or a few rivets start to give the load is automatically and immediately take up by the rivets around them, again loading all the rivets equally. A word about crack propagation: riveted seams are natural crack terminators. A crack that goes clear across one plate will never, ever get to the adjacent plates.
You want to know what keeps every 747 ever made from exploding at altitude? Rivets. Double rows of rivets.
Welding, on the other hand, is lighter and faster than riveting. But wait! Shouldn't welding be stronger because the plates are one piece of metal? Well, no, because the plates are one piece of metal you see. With riveting each plate can deform (ever so slightly) on its own to load the seam evenly. Whereas with welding the plates are prevented from moving and any defects in the weld (yes there will be) will cause stress concentrations, loading the seam very much unevenly.
