An Experimental Research on Quality and Strength of Aluminous Joint by Clinch Joining Technique

Due to its advantages over the spot welding technique, clinch joining technique is applied extensively in the automobile, electrical apparatus, etc. The quality and strength of the joints are the hot issues of the technique, which are severely affected by the processing parameters and die structure parameters. Clinch joining experiments of aluminous sheetsL5 were carried out under various blank holder forces and die structure parameters, and the influence of the parameters on the failure mode, section quality and strength of the joints were analyzed. The results show that the failure of the joints is mainly the shearing and a good section quality and high shearing strength of the joints can be obtained by reasonable processing parameters and die structure parameters.

Numerical Simulation of Clinching Process in Copper Alloy Sheets

The clinch joining is a new technique to join light alloy materials. This paper studies the process of clinching in joining Copper alloy sheets based on the method of numerical simulation combined with experiment. The studies are performed by employing software ansys/ls-dyna considering with the contact conditions and material models in the model. Efficient analytic results of forming of clinching in Copper alloy sheets are provided. The experiments of clinched joints in Copper alloy sheets are carried out to validate the simulation. It is shown that the simulation of process of clinching joints in Copper alloy sheet has a good agreement with the experimental result. That suggests the developed finite element model, considering the contact conditions of materials and the material models can be used to predict the joint forming of Copper alloy by clinching ideally.

FEA Simulation of Clinching Process Based on GTN Damage Model

In this work, the Gurson-Tvergaard-Needleman (GTN) damage model is adopted to depict the material damage during the clinch joining process in a simulation-based theoretical model. The parameters of the GTN model which influence the void nucleation, growth and coalescence are identified. Their values of a specific material, C45E4 (ISO) steel, have been determined after carefully comparing the simulation results with the real sheet material tensile test. The established GTN damage model parameters are then imported into the simulation model to investigate the material damage during the mechanical clinch joining process. The Finite Element Analysis (FEA) simulation results show promising, because the material’s initial damage position can be located and analyzed. For a given design, the initial fracture point was predicted which is located on the inner side of the clinched joint neck of the upper sheet, which matches with the results of the experimental test very well. It can be concluded that the incorporation of GTN damage model has extend the capability of the simulation model.