Abstract
The clinched process of heterogeneous materials is more and more used in automobile, aerospace, and household appliances manufacturing. Traditional spot welding is easy to produce heat influence and damage material itself, which restricts the application and development for the hybrid structure of the vehicle body. This paper is based on the test of clinching. The cross-section morphology of clinched joints is observed. Based on the tensile test data and the requirements of the test die, the finite element model of the steel-aluminum clinched joint forming is established. The model is proved to be effective in the process of clinched forming. Based on the simulation model, the influence of process parameters (forming process parameters, Punch’s geometry parameters, and concave die structural parameters) on the forming quality of steel- aluminum clinched joint is analyzed. The evaluation of the joint after forming includes the critical dimension, deformation, and neck-lock ratio. Then, the strength of the steel-aluminum clinched joint was studied by tensile shear test. The law of strength change and the neck-lock ratio is analyzed. The selection strategy of different process parameters is studied. The results show that the forming process of the joint is predicted by numerical simulation, and the quality of the joint is sound. The neck-lock ratio of the joint with the highest tensile and shear strength is less than one and close to 1, that is, the joint with forming force of 40kN. The tensile strength and shear strength of clinched joint are higher than the design index (shear strength is 1700N, tensile strength is 700N). The tensile strength was increased by 125%, and the shear strength was 62.35%.