Joining Car Body Steel Sheets Using the Clinching Method

Abstract

He is head of the Department of Technologies and Materials and Vice-Rector for Development and Construction of the University. He served as Vice-Dean for 4 years and Vice-Rector for 8 years. He works in the area of evaluating of material properties, material failures, analysis and quantification of production factors influence in production of thin steel sheet stamping parts, modelling and simulation of technological processes, mainly forming processes. He is national secretary and a member of International Deep-Drawing Research Group. He is author of 5 monographs and more than 200 publications in journals and conference proceedings at Slovakia and abroad. His published works were cited 115 times. He has been worked on 60 grant projects, research tasks and 47 projects solved for industry. Ľuboš Kaščák, Ing. PhD. (born in 1974) is an assistant professor at the Department of Technology and materials. He received scientific degree PhD. in 2004 in the field of properties evaluation of joined deep drawn sheets. He is an author of more than 70 publications in journals and conference proceeding in Slovakia and abroad. He has worked on several grant projects and research tasks. ABSTRACT The paper deals with joining steel sheets for automotive industry using the clinching method. This method is a relatively new technique in joining car body sheets and it is beginning to find its place in the automotive industry as an alternative to resistance spot welding, especially in joining materials of different qualities or materials with different surface treatment. Combination of three hot-dip galvanized steel sheets: microalloyed steel sheet with the thickness of , steel with the thickness of and drawing grade sheet with the thickness of were used for the experiments. The tensile test and metalographical analysis were used for the evaluation of the clinched joints properties. We observed the influence of the sheets' position during clinching (taking into consideration the materials and the active parts of the tool-punch and die) on the carrying capacity of the joint.