Effect of adhesive application on friction self-piercing riveting (F-SPR) process of AA7075-T6 aluminum alloy

Abstract

The combination of adhesive and other joining processes has been an increasing interest in the transportation industry. In this paper, a hybrid joining process combining friction self-piercing riveting (F-SPR) and adhesive bonding was developed to join AA7075-T6 aluminum alloy sheets. The formation process, macro morphology, microstructure, microhardness, and mechanical performance of F-SPR bonded joints were investigated comparing with the F-SPR joints. It was concluded that the adhesive played a role of lubrication for reducing the contact stiffness between the aluminum sheets, which further reduced the interlocking amount but did not affect the solid-state welding between the aluminum sheets. After the F-SPR bonding process, the initial 0.3-mm-thick adhesive layer was squeezed to less than 0.06 mm under a maximum riveting force of about 20 kN. The subsequent baking treatment for the adhesive curing ([email protected]℃) re-precipitated the η strengthening phase in the aluminum heat-affected zone, which further improved the aluminum hardness as well as the mechanical performance of the joint. The F-SPR bonded joint exhibited a combination of adhesive failure and rivet pull-out failure under quasi-static loading, which improved the tensile-shear strength by 128.7 % than the baked F-SPR joint but had no apparent effect on cross-tension performance. The F-SPR bonded joint also superposed the fatigue failure modes of the F-SPR joint and adhesive bonding joint, exhibiting the longest fatigue lives under the same cyclic load amplitude. The process provides a new method for aluminum alloy sheet joining in body-in-white production.