Electro-Hydraulic Clinching: A novel high speed joining process

A new joining process, named Electro-Hydraulic Clinching (EHC) is presented. In this process, electrical energy stored in a pulse generator is suddenly discharged between the electrodes submerged in a fluid and initiate a shock wave in the fluid. The shock wave propagates through the fluid and forms the sheets to the clinching die cavity and creates a joint between them. To investigate the capabilities of the presented method, the EHC process was applied for hole clinching of AA3105/Ck67 sheets with 0.5 mm thicknesses. The influence of process parameters on the quality of the joint was determined. Also, single lap shear and peel tests were performed on the specimens to investigate the joint strength and the mechanical behavior of the joints. According to the accomplished results, the utilization of this joining process increases the strength of the joint and the joint efficiency of the present method is about two times of other clinching methods.