Form-Joining Process with the Aid of Adhesive for Joining of Sheet Metal Pair

The form-joining process (or clinching) uses a set of die and punch to impose the plastic deformation-induced geometric constraint on a sheet metal pair. The joining strength from the process ranges 50-70 percent of that of the resistance spot welding. In this paper, a new form-joining process with the aid of an adhesive is proposed in which an epoxy adhesive is applied to a sheet metal pair, and before it cures the pair is clinched to cause the geometric constraint in the form of a protrusion. In order to reduce the forming load and the height of protrusions, a new die and punch set with a very small clearance is devised to reduce the depth of drawing and the forming load. Taguchi method is employed to find the optimal values of design parameters. To implement each case of the orthogonal array, the finite element method is used. The experiments show that in the tensile-shear test, the bonding strength of the new form-joining process with an epoxy adhesive is approximately the same as that of the resistance spot welding; and in comparison with the other two form-joining processes with an epoxy adhesive, the height of protrusions is reduced by more than 65 percent and the forming load by 50 percent.

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