ELUCIDATING THE EFFECT OF CONTACT STRESSES IN DISSIMILAR ALUMINUM-TO-ALUMINUM JOINING VIA SELF-PIERCE RIVETING

Joao Felipe Carvalho de Moraes¹; Harish Rao¹; James Brian Jordon¹

¹ The University of Alabama

doi:10.20906/CPS/COB-2015-2388

Resumo

In the present work, the relationship between residual stresses, contact forces and fatigue damage was studied for joining sheets of aluminum alloy 6111 to 5754 series by self-pierce riveting (SPR). To achieve this, an isotropic material hardening model with Johnson-Cook criterion was applied to simulate the SPR process via finite element analysis (FEA). Results from FEA indicated a strong relationship between the contact forces as a result of the SPR process and the fatigue crack initiation sites observed in the fatigue experiments. In fact, under high cycle fatigue, results indicate that fatigue cracks typically originated at areas of high contact forces, such that final rupture of the joint occurred away from the rivet.

Palavras-chave: finite element analysis; plastic deformation; self-pierce riveting; fatigue; contact forces