A Study on Stepped Clinching of AA5052/1060 Dissimilar Aluminum Alloy Sheets: Process, Joint Configuration, and Strength

With the increasing significance of lightweight structures for vehicles and aerospace, the reliable joining of lightweight alloy plates represented by aluminum alloys has received much attention. As one of novel clinching methods, stepped clinching (SC) holds immense potential for environmental protection, high efficiency, and low cost. To broaden the application of the new type of SC in heterogeneous aluminum alloy plates, this experiment takes AA5052 and AA1060 alloys, and carries out research from the perspectives of the forming force of clinching, the cross-sectional shape of joints, the form of failure, and the static–dynamic mechanical properties, and compares them with conventional round clinching (RC). It was found that SC can increase the neck thickness and thus the strength of the joint, and that the shear strength of SC with AA5052 and AA1060 as the upper plates was increased by 27.9% and 35.3% compared to RC at the forming force of 40 kN. Also the dynamic strength of SC is much higher than that of RC at forming forces from 30 kN to 40 kN, in which, at 35 kN, the strength of AA5052 and AA1060 as the upper plates are enhanced by 113.1% and 46.7%, respectively.