Fastenerless-Riveting Utilizing Friction Stir Forming for Dissimilar Materials Joining

Abstract

This paper proposes a new joining approach for dissimilar materials, called ‘the fastenerless-riveting,’ employing the friction stir forming (FSF). The FSF is a friction stir process invented by Nishihara in 2002. In FSF, a substrate material was put on a die firstly. Next, friction stirring was conducted on the back surface of the material. The material then deformed and precisely filled the cavity of the die due to high pressure and heat caused by the friction stirring. The authors utilized the FSF approach to generate rivet like joints as followings. First, a substrate which is capable for friction stirring, i.e. an aluminum alloy plate, was put on a dissimilar material plate having holes, i.e. a steel plate. The authors call the former ‘the host member,’ the latter ‘a joined member.’ These members were put on a die having the cavity to fabricate the head of the rivet-like structure. Then FSF was conducted to form the stems and heads of the structure. Joint members are able to be stacked within the forming limit. In the study, the authors firstly conducted the proof of the concept (PoC) tests to generate rivet-like structure between steel and aluminum alloy plate and between CFRP and aluminum alloy plate, then investigated the forming conditions, i.e. tool feed rate, tool pass and the corresponding results, including the volume of the generated stem and head of the individual rivet-like structure. 3mm-thick A5083P-O aluminum alloy plates was utilized as the host member, and a 0.7mm-thick SPCE steel plate and a 0.8mm-thick CFRP plate as the joined members.