Alternatives methods of joining of perpendicular thin steel sheet

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Hi I am researching alternatives methods of joining of thin perpendicular mild hardened or stainless steel sheet  As the attachment describes I have a thin vertical 2mm steel sheet strips  that has must be assembled perpendicular to the supporting horizontal plate of similar 2mm thicknessThis horizontal plate has had has receiving slots laser cut into it. The purpose of these slots is just to hold the perpendicular components in place.For the prototype I had joined these perpendicular pieces by extending the vertical strips past the horizontal plate to form lugs that I bent over against the horizontal surface This is quite strong but the protruding bent lugs present a problem on the outside and I would prefer to get rid of them. in mass production I had envisaged that I could weld these vertical strips into the slots from the outside (there is a lot of these vertical strips and slots closely spaced so access on the 'inside" is limited) perhaps by robot  in a form of T weld from base but I was wondering if there is a better fabrication technique for this type of join that someone could suggest. I also would like these vertical strips to be as rigid as possible so was hoping to put them under tension thru the process any ideas ? Many thanks
Reply:If the protrusion on the vertical piece is short, maybe it could be swaged in the opening like a rivet.  That requires that tooling and maybe the geometry of your product doesn't allow this.  Still, the swaged ends might look better than the protruding lugs.