Review: Self Piercing Riveting in Automotive Industry

Abstract

SPR or self piercing riveting is a cold mechanical joining process in which the sheets of materials are joined by driving a rivet piercing through the top sheet or top and middle sheets and eventually lock under the guidance of a suitable die into the bottom sheet. SPR is currently the main joining method for mixed-material lightweight automotive structures and aluminium. SPR was originated half century ago, but it only had significant progress in the last 25 years due to the requirement of joining lightweight materials, such as aluminium alloy structures, aluminium-steel structures and other mixed-material structures, from the automotive industry. Compared with other conventional joining methods, SPR has many advantages including no pre-drilled holes required, no fume, no spark and low noise, no surface treatment required, ability to join multi-layer materials and mixed materials and ability to produce joints with high static and fatigue strengths. In this paper, research investigations that have been conducted on self-piercing riveting will be extensively reviewed. The current state and development of SPR process is reviewed and the influence of the key process parameters on joint quality is discussed. The tests and relevance of SPR joints, the advantages and possible disadvantages, applications and futuristic trends of SPR are reviewed.