Clinching as a non-standard method for joining materials of dissimilar properties

The automotive industry is currently working to accommodate the conflicting requirements of both environmental legislation and customer demands for greater performance and more luxury and safety features, by developing a light-weight and therefore essentially, energy-efficient vehicle. To satisfy these demands, various materials are used in car body production. But it is not always possible to join these materials by common joining method such as resistance spot welding; therefore clinching seems to be possible alternative. The paper dealt with the evaluation of properties of joints made by clinching. The sheets made of the high-strength low-alloy steel H220PD (a0 = 0.8 mm), advanced high strength steel RA-K 40/70+Z100MBO (a0 = 0.77 mm) and the drawing grade steel DX51D+Z (a0 = = 0.9 mm) were used for the experiments. The following tests were performed to evaluate the properties of the clinched joints: tensile test and a metallographical analysis.