Self-piercing riveting of high tensile strength steel and aluminium alloy sheets using conventional rivet and die

High tensile strength steel sheets having different strengths were joined with an aluminium alloy sheet by a self-piercing rivet. In the joining, a conventional rivet and die used for aluminium alloy sheets were employed in order to have the versatility for various steel sheets. The effects of the flow stress of the high strength steel sheets and the combination of the sheets on the joinability of the sheets were investigated by finite element simulation and an experiment. As the tensile strength of the high strength steel sheet increases, the interlock for the upper high strength steel sheet increases due to the increase in flaring during the driving through the upper sheet, whereas that for the lower high strength steel sheet decreases. The joint strength for the lower high strength steel is comparatively smaller than that for the upper high strength steel sheet. It was found that the high tensile strength steel sheets below 590 MPa were fully joined with the aluminium alloy sheet even with the conventional self-piercing rivet and die.