TESTING OF METAL CONNECTIONS USING ADHESIVE BONDING COMBINED WITH SELF-PIERCING RIVETING

Abstract

A modern car body structure is driven by the multi-material design approach. The best material at the correct place is the objective. Consequently, components made of dissimilar materials need to be joined and the applied joining technology becomes a key issue for crashworthiness and structural reliability. In the present work, connections between steel and aluminium using adhesive bonding combined with self-piercing riveting and their structural design are investigated. The safe application of this hybrid joining technology in a vehicle structure requires detailed knowledge about its mechanical behaviour. For that purpose, riveted, bonded and hybrid connections need to be characterized under tension, shear and mixed mode loading. In the present work, results obtained from a novel test setup are presented. The response of self-piercing riveting and adhesive connections is discussed separately as well as the interaction between both joining technologies. Furthermore, a new test setup for adhesively bonded and point-wise connected components is presented. Here, load combinations comparable to a vehicle crash are introduced into the connections. The developed setup facilitates successive failure of multiple connections and enables a broad validation of numerical connection models.