A frictional contact model is adopted for the analysis of conventional solid rivet setting. Material properties for the selected plates and rivets are obtained from analytical method using elastic constants and tensile strengths for each material. Rigid- and elasto-plastic models are selected for process analysis in this paper. Process variables are selected to investigate the effect of variables on the successful rivet setting and servicing in any structure as force transmitting member. Major variables in riveting process are material variables such as material properties and geometrical variables, which are dimensions of head, shank, and blank diameters. Analysis in this study is concentrated on the influence of variety of materials and of shank dimensions on the contact area after rivet setting, i.e. after forming process of rivet head. Soft and hard materials are selected as mother materials to investigate how the selection of material influences on the riveting process in quantitative manner. The geometry of head is closely investigated through simulation in terms of contact status, i.e. contact area between rivet head and mother material, which would affect the snap fit joint by riveting.