Investigation of effect of dimensional properties on the load bearing capability of self-clinch fasteners

Expectations of environmental harmony and fuel economy have been become weight reduction into main objective of automotive industry. On that context, manufacturing automotive body parts from materials with high specific strength like aluminum alloys (AA) provide great benefits. In order to take advantage of these benefits, parts made of AA must be assembled with other components made of different types of materials. Due to joining of such dissimilar materials cannot be achieved by using conventional processes like spot welding, research efforts have been made to develop joining methods based on forming. In this study, relationships between geometrical properties and load bearing capabilities of fasteners that can be assembled based on principles of clinching were investigated via both experimental and finite element methods. By evaluating obtained these relationships, dimensions for basic geometric parameters of the fastener were determined that required to obtain superior mechanical performance. A prototype fastener model, which can be used in industrial scale was developed based on results this subject which has not been examined in the literature before.