The suitability of analytical and numerical methods for developing clinching processes with thick sheet metal

At present, the use of clinching is mainly restricted to thin sheet metal. Here the joining technology is used for assemblies in mass production due to its great coast efficiency. However, the branches of industry working with thick sheet metal (utility and rail vehicle engineering, shipbuilding and general structural steel engineering) represent a major potential for using clinching technology. Unfortunately, the suitability of clinching for connecting jobs with substantially greater sheet metal thicknesses has neither been sufficiently investigated, nor are there suitable toolsets among system manufacturers that are adapted to the larger overall sheet metal thicknesses. Instead, the state-of-the-art for ascertaining tools for larger sheet metal thicknesses and point dimensions is trial and error accepting the high costs caused by producing a large number of tools and experiments. This paper demonstrates some analytical approaches to this problem and how suitable they are to describing the process of clinching in comparison to the potential of calculation with FEA.