Clinching in in-situ CT – Experimental study on suitable tool materials

Research output: Contribution to book/conference proceedings/anthology/reportConference contributionContributedpeer-review

Abstract

In lightweight design, clinching is a cost-efficient solution as the joint is created through localized cold-forming of the joining parts. A clinch point's quality is usually assessed using ex-situ destructive testing methods. These, however, are unable to detect phenomena immediately during the joining process. For instance, elastic deformations reverse and cracks close after unloading. In-situ methods such as the force-displacement evaluation are used to control a clinching process, though deviations in the clinch point geometry cannot be derived with this method. To overcome these limitations, the clinching process can be investigated using in-situ computed tomography (in-situ CT). However, a clinching tool made of steel would cause strong artefacts and a high attenuation in the CT measurement, reducing the significance of this method. Additionally, when joining parts of the same material, the sheet-sheet interface is hardly detectable. This work aims at identifying, firstly, tool materials that allow artefact-reduced CT measurements during clinching, and, secondly, radiopaque materials that can be applied between the joining parts to enhance the detectability of the sheet-sheet interface. Therefore, both CT-suitable tool materials and radiopaque materials are selected and experimentally investigated. In the clinching process, two aluminium sheets with radiopaque material in between are clinched in a single-step (rotationally symmetric joint without cut section). It is shown that e.g. silicon nitride is suited as tool material and a tin layer is suitable to enhance the detectability of the sheet-sheet interface.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings ESAFORM 2021
Place of PublicationLiège, Belgique
ISBN (electronic)9782870193020
Publication statusPublished - 10 Apr 2021
Peer-reviewedYes

Conference

Title24th International ESAFORM Conference on Material Forming
Abbreviated titleESAFORM 2021
Conference number24
Duration14 - 16 April 2021
Website
Degree of recognitionInternational event
Locationonline
CityLiège
CountryBelgium

External IDs

Scopus 85104173726
ORCID /0000-0003-0014-3039/work/142233816
ORCID /0000-0003-2689-1203/work/142233941
ORCID /0000-0003-1370-064X/work/142243410

Keywords

Keywords

  • Clinching, Computed Tomography, In-situ CT, Radiopaque Material