Feasibility of Forming Al5052-polymer Hybrid Clinch Joint With Round Grooved Clinch Set

• Main Author: Tan, Yi Ying
• Format: Final Year Project / Dissertation / Thesis
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: TJ Mechanical engineering and machinery
• Online Access: http://eprints.utar.edu.my/3468/1/ME%2D1404002%2D2019%2D1.pdf; http://eprints.utar.edu.my/3468/
• Institution: Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman

Joining process is the key enabler of light weight and multi-material design. Due to the different natures and properties of each material, joining of dissimilar materials is relatively challenging as compared to joining of similar materials.Among many of the joining methods available in the industry, mechanical clinching represents a viable solution in addressing the difficulty faced in joining dissimilar materials. It is a process which join material sheets together by plastically deform them and create an interlock between them. It is a fast, simple and environmental-friendly process which does not introduce any extra element to the assembly. To date, there are numbers of researches have been conducted to study the suitability of joining metal with polymer by using mechanical clinching process. One of the studies reported that round grooved clinch dies are not feasible for joining aluminium and polymer. Thus, in the presence study, the feasibility of joining Aluminium 5052 with polymers by using round grooved clinch die was investigated.It was found that round grooved clinch die is able to produce sound clinched connection between Aluminium 5052 and polymers such as polycarbonate, polyvinyl chloride and high impact polystyrene with the maximum shear strength of 1.28kN, 1.21kN and 0.8kN respectively. It was also found that punch load has great impact on the joinability and failure modes of the hybrid structure. Besides, numerical simulation was also conducted in the study and the results obtained were in agreement with experiment data and shown a strong experimental - numerical correlation. This proves that the approaches used in the finite element analysis is valid and it is suitable to be used to optimize joint strength and predict failure in the future work.This study has proven the feasibility of joining metal with polymer by using round grooved clinch die and this finding is significant in terms of it may have huge impact on introducing industry a simple, fast and eco-friendly joining method to join dissimilar material.