Transfer inovácií 28/2013
MECHANICAL JOINING METHODS IN CAR BODY CONSTRUCTION
doc. Ing. Ľuboš Kaščák, PhD.
prof. Ing. Emil Spišák, CSc.
Technical University of Košice
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
Department of Technology and Materials
Mäsiarska 74, 040 01 Košice
lubos.kascak@tuke.sk
emil.spisak@tuke.sk
Abstract
The paper describes mechanical joining
methods used in car body production as alternatives
to conventional joining methods such as resistance
spot welding and laser welding or laser brazing.
Carrying capacities of methods of mechanical
joining and resistance spot welding of various
materials used in car body structures are compared.
The mechanical joining is mainly used to join
material with various thicknesses, mechanical
properties, surface coatings, even ferrous or non-
ferrous metals.
Key words: mechanical joining, evaluation of
properties.
INTRODUCTION
Automotive industry is a challenging
business which is required not only to respond to
environmental concerns such as greenhouse gases
and fuel economy, but also to meet customer
expectations [1]. The car body consists of a
combination of several materials, which is a result
of material and energy saving trends applied in car
body production. The production of vehicles with
lower weight and consequently also lower fuel
consumption is responding to ecological demands
of reduction of emissions into the environment [2].
There is a need to join different materials –
materials of various thicknesses, qualities, surface
treatments. Such practice in car body production
opens new possibilities for designers in optimal
utilization of properties of various materials, which
can be combined into one construction. For
example, the cheapest materials can be situated in
the common parts of pressing in car body, good-
quality sheets can be situated in the critical places
of deformation and high-strength sheets can be used
in the exposed places due to demands of
construction – deformation zones [2]. These
demands lead to research in the area of material
joining with the emphasis mainly on carrying
capacity of joints, quality of joints and corrosion
resistance.
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MATERIALS IN CAR BODY PRODUCTION
Before being approved for use in
automotive industry, materials need to comply with
numerous requirements. Some of the criteria result
from environmental or safety legislation and
regulations and some respond to customers’ needs.
On many occasions, there is a conflict among
different factors, so a successful resulting design
requires optimized and balanced solutions [3].
There is a high emphasis on the reduction of
greenhouse gas emissions and increasing fuel
efficiency in the transportation sector. The
reduction of a vehicle’s weight is still the most
cost-effective means of reducing fuel consumption
and greenhouse gas emissions. It has been
estimated that each 10% reduction of a vehicle's
total weight decreases its fuel consumption by 7%.
Similarly, one-kilogram vehicle weight reduction
reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 20 kg. All
automobile manufacturers, suppliers, assemblers,
and component producers invest significantly in the
development of manufacturing components and
vehicle structures employing lightweight materials
[3,4].
At the same time, car manufacturers also
need to adopt lightweight materials technology to
meet the recycling and recovery of end-of-life
vehicles requirements with recovery targets of 85%.
One of the most important requirement in
car production responding to consumers’ needs is
the cost of the vehicle. The costs of new materials
are always compared to those that are currently
being used, as cost is one of the most important
variables that determine whether a new material has
a potential to be used for a particular component.
The resulting cost is comprised of several
components: actual cost of raw materials, the cost
of designing, manufacturing and testing the
product. The test costs can be quite high since it is
only after successful vehicle testing that newer
materials be employed in mass production [3].
The recent decade has witnessed
considerable developments in advanced iron and
steel technologies that car manufacturers frequently
employ in new design solutions. The advances in
the use of iron and steel significantly reduce the
mass of ferrous materials, which are the dominant
material (about 64%) of typical family vehicles.
There are several ways of classifying
automotive steels. The first is a metallurgical
designation. Common designations include the
following:
• low-strength steels (interstitial-free and
mild steels),
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• conventional HSS (carbonmanganese, use of high strength ductile steels. The bodies are
bake hardenable, high-strength interstitial- assembled not only by means of resistance spot
free, and high-strength, low-alloy steels), welding and adhesive bonding but also by means of
• newer types of AHSS (dual phase, mechanical joining – Fig. 2.
transformation-induced plasticity, complex
phase, and martensitic steels),
• additional higher strength steels for the
automotive industry, such as ferritic-
bainitic, twinning-induced plasticity, hot-
formed, and post-forming heat-treated
steels.

Recently, there has been a steady increase

in the use of high-strength steels (HSS), many
versions of which are referred to as high-strength,
low-alloy (HSLA) steels. These materials and their
associated advanced design and production
techniques (as well as improved design and
production of traditional steels) were used by the
American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) in
Ultralight Steel Auto Body (ULSAB) series of
studies and demonstration projects. In comparison
with a conventional steel body, the ULSAB car
body achieved a 19% mass reduction in a body Fig. 2 The most used methods in vehicle
structure that had superior strength and structural construction
performance (including crashworthiness) as well as
a reduced parts count and net manufacturing cost Joining the modern materials with special
savings. Similar mass reductions and other requirements or various combinations (joining
advantages were reached for doors, decklids, hoods, together steels, aluminium alloys and magnesium
and hatchbacks. Advanced steel materials and alloys) by classic joining processes such as
forming processes enable optimization of vehicle resistance spot welding or laser brazing is very
body structures and components. difficult or sometimes even impossible. Therefore
The principal reason for employing steel in new joining methods including mechanical joining
the body structure of a vehicle is its inherent are used.
capability to absorb impact energy in an accident.
Another advantages include good formability and METHODS OF MECHANICAL JOINING
joining capability. That is why these materials are The application of mechanical joining save
often a preferred choice for the designer of the the assembly time as the additional efforts related to
body-in-white (BIW) structure – Fig. 1. joined element pre-merging before other joining
process such as laser welding (Fig. 3). Due to the
fact, that mechanical joining is cold process, it
significantly decrease the energy cost [3].

Fig. 1 Materials used in car body structure – Volvo

V60
In order to reduce weight, tailored blanks
are being used to an increasing extent in
bodymaking. The combination of sheets with
different materials, material thicknesses or surface
conditions serves to achieve better material
utilization. The tailored blanks allow the increasing
Fig. 3 Clinching with notch to set elements before
proper joining by laser welding
The selection of joining method and the
joint construction itself is very important stage
when designing all construction, including thin-
walled ones – Table 1.

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Tab. 1 Comparison to competing system [3]

The most commonly used sheet metal
joining solutions require additional fasteners in
order to create the joint (e.g. sheet metal screws,
blind rivets, etc.). The only exception is the spot
welded joints. The most frequently used pressed
joints used in thin-walled constructions are as
follows:
• circular pressed joint formed without an
additional fastener (Clinching),
• circular pressed joint formed with an
special reinforcing rivet (ClinchRivet),
• rectangular pressed joint with material
notch (ClinchingR), but also other types of
pressed joints are known,
• self-pierce riveting (SPR).
All observed samples of resistance spot
welded joints had higher values of carrying
capacities in comparison to CR joints. On average,
the CR joints reached about 85 % (samples with
H220PD steel) and about 60 % (samples with
DX51D+Z steel) of carrying capacities of resistance
spot welded joints. Joints made by clinch rivet
method failed in the manner of a press-stud in
combination with the mode of one edge of the joint
fails.

The dimensions of fasteners and

overpresses were close and the average joint
diameters was in a range of 5.5 ÷ 6mm. The blind
rivet made in steel-steel system‒ the tubular part
and core made of steel. The ClinchRivet technology
rivet is made of aluminum alloy and steel SPR
according to the offer from the companies: Tox
Pressotechnik GmbH&Co. KG and Wilhelm Fig. 4 Load-displacement curves of the CR joints
Böllhoff GmbH & Co. KG. and RSW joints after tensile test
Loaf-displacement curves of CR joints
compared with the curves of resistance spot welded For joints made of three H220PD sheet
joints after tensile test are shown in Fig. 4. metals, the lowest total breaking force was achieved
for the joint made by clinching – Fig. 5.

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Much bigger total breaking force was
achieved for the resistance spot welded joints
(curve: RSW), where the breaking force increase by
about 40%. When looking at the shearing curves,
the spot welded joint features the highest rigidity,
this is the steepest curve in its initial forcing
displacement range (Fig. 6). This second method
was conventional riveting, which results in a
loosening of the joint after quite small
displacements.
Good effect was achieved for the
clinchriveting joints. However, this solution
requires more expensive tools and the rivet feeding
header.
Fig. 5 Load-displacement curves of clinching and
clinchriveting of 3 sheets
Fig. 6 The force reaction curve of joint to forcing
displacement for various joining techniques
In the case of joining materials such as
DX51D+Z, DC06 and H220PD, similar relations
between the maximum shear force and the joining
method can be observed (Fig. 7). The highest
values of Fmax were measure in resistances spot
welded joints, then clinchriveted joints and the last
ones were double clinched and clinched joints. The
most significant differences in maximum shear
force were observed in samples with DX51D+Z
materials.
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Fig. 7 The shearing force for various mechanical
joints
CONCLUSION
Conventional materials are in the limit of
use, despite of the continual increasing of their
technological application. Therefore it is necessary
to develop and evaluate new material combinations
and progressive technologies of their processing to
withstand demanding conditions together with the
economical demanding. The question is not only
how to make the parts of car body, but also how to
join them together in functional and safety
construction.
The results of experiments showed
possibility of mechanical joining to be an
alternative method mainly to resistance spot
welding when joining the car body sheets.
References
[1] Kaščák, Ľ. - Spišák, E. - Mucha, J.: Evaluation
of properties of joints made by clinching and
self-piercing riveting methods. In: Acta
Metallurgica Slovaca, Vol. 18, No. 4, 2012, p.
172-180.
[2] Kaščák, Ľ. – Mucha, J. – Slota, J. – Spišák, E.:
Application of modern joining methods in car
production. Oficyna Wydawnicza Politechniki
Rzeszowskiej, Rzeszów, 2013.
[3] Blake, D.M.: Cold Working Effects on
Mechanical Properties in Sheet Metal Joining
for Automotive Applications. Master Thesis,
Washington State University, School of
Engineering and Computer Science, 2006.
[4] Mucha, J. – Bartczak, B.: Sheets clinching
process analysis. Archives of Mechanical
Technology and Automation, 31, 2011, s. 59-68.
Authors are grateful for the support of
experimental works by the projects APVV-0682-
11 “Application of progressive tool coatings for
increasing the effectiveness and productivity of
forming sheets made of modern materials”.
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