A novel ultrasonic-assisted staking process for mechanical fasteners

Abstract

Increasing material variety in car body engineering causes new challenges regarding the joining processes and therefore, leads to an enhanced usage of mechanical joining technologies. Mechanical fasteners, as self-piercing nuts, can be staked cost-efficiently without a pre-punching operation to create detachable joints. Nevertheless, elevated workpiece strengths lead to high forming forces and a limited application range. One promising approach to reduce tool and workpiece loads in forming operations is superimposing a high-frequency oscillation to the tool movement. The so-called ultrasonic assistance enables an immediate and considerable reduction of the material's flow stress. This beneficial softening effect has been confirmed for several materials and processes. Since the process management and monitoring are highly affected by the frequency-dependent dynamic behavior of the whole test setup, the application of ultrasonic assistance is already challenging for basic forming operations. Hence, only a few studies have been investigating ultrasonic-assisted joining processes. In particular, joining processes with auxiliary elements have been hardly considered. Within the scope of this work, a novel ultrasonic-assisted staking process for mechanical fasteners is proposed. Therefore, the punch movement for the installation of a self-piercing nut into an aluminum sheet is superimposed with a 20 kHz oscillation of 10 µm, 15 µm, and 20 µm amplitude. Ultrasonic assistance in the initial staking phase, characterized by moderate loads, causes irregular tool–specimen contact. Since the effect is promoted by increasing amplitudes, a correlation with the elastic tool deflection is presumed. Additionally, the transferability of the ultrasonic-based force reduction to mechanical joining with auxiliary element is confirmed and a beneficial influence on the joint formation is identified. Thus, ultrasonic assistance is proven as a promising approach for the extension of existing process limits.