Influence of Kinematic Hardening on Clinch Joining of Dual-Phase Steel HCT590X Sheet Metal

Nowadays, clinching is a widely used joining technique, where sheets are joined by pure deformation to create an interlock without the need for auxiliary parts. This leads to advantages such as reduced joining time and manufacturing costs. On the other hand, the joint strength solely relies on directed material deformation, which renders an accurate material modelling essential to reliably predict the joint forming. The formation of the joint locally involves large plastic strains and possibly complex non-proportional loading paths, as typical of many metal forming applications. Consequently, a finite plasticity formulation is utilised incorporating a Chaboche–Rousselier kinematic hardening law to capture the Bauschinger effect. Material parameters are identified from tension–compression tests on miniature spec- imens for the dual-phase steel HCT590X. The resulting material model is implemented in LS-Dyna to study the locally diverse loading paths and give a quantitative statement on the importance of kinematic hardening for clinching. It turns out that the Bauschinger effect mainly affects the springback of the sheets and has a smaller effect on the joint forming itself.