Mechanical behaviour of self-piercing riveted multi-layer joints under different specimen configurations

A study examining the effect of specimen configuration on the mechanical behaviour of self-piercing riveted, multi-layer joints in aluminium alloys was conducted. It has observed that the specimen configuration had a significant effect on the strength and failure mechanism of a self-piercing riveted multi-layer joint. During shear testing, when secondary bending was present interlock failure was observed, while in the absence of secondary bending, sheet material failure occurred. Interlock and sheet material failure modes were also observed in T-peel tests, where depending on the configuration, either substrate failure led to peeling the top sheet away from the rivet head, or interlock failure resulted in pulling the rivet out of the bottom sheet. In the cases where the sheet material failed, an increase in sheet material strength led to an increase in joint strength. Under identical setting conditions, joints with double shear and no secondary bending effect exhibited significantly higher shear strength and more energy absorption than joints in single shear.