Tubular Self-Piercing Riveting Applied to Butt Joints

11/28/2023

Self-piercing riveting (SPR) is a cold-forming process widely used to join sheets of whether metallic, polymeric or composite materials. It is a process regularly found in the automotive industry, for instance. It consists of inserting a rivet into the workpiece in a single-stroke operation, without any pre-drilled holes, creating a permanent and cost-effective connection. Automakers have been pushed into producing vehicles that are more efficient and lighter to respond to ever tighter emissions standards for new internal combustion engine vehicles on the market, and to produce longer-ranging electric vehicles. As a result, new materials have been introduced into vehicles’ mass manufacturing, such as aluminium and magnesium alloys, among others, replacing heavier steel in structural components. For some of these materials the processes, such as resistance spot welding, are no longer competitive or even applicable. One manufacturing solution that had significant growth in use is Self-Piercing Riveting (SPR). Usually, the materials’ surfaces are extended to overlap each other and perform a lap joint. This overlap means more weight. This work reports on the question if a SPR process could be implemented with butt joints, presenting a feasibility analysis of the Tubular-SPR variant applied to butt joints, without auxiliary straps and using flat tools. It is given emphasis to aluminium workpieces, but copper and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) workpieces were also tested. It was observed that it is possible to join sheets of 5mm thickness in such a configuration, with thinner and taller rivets producing connections with the most mechanical resistance.

Authors in the community:

• 

  L

  Leonardo Lúcio de Melo Sabino

  ist190306

Supervisors of this institution:

• 

  L

  Luís Manuel Mendonça Alves

  ist13976

mechanical-engineering - Mechanical engineering

eng - English

Instituto Superior Técnico