Development of hybrid clinched structure by using multi-cohesive zone models

Recent design concept of automotive body, as called multi-material design, is required a new joining method to join no-ferrous metal like aluminum alloy. One of new joining methods is hybrid joining combined with mechanical joining and adhesive bonding. The purpose of this study is to propose the multi-cohesive zone models (CZMs) for design of the hybrid joined structure with AA6063 alloy sheets. To evaluate the crashworthiness of hybrid clinched structure, the failure behavior of hybrid clinching was described by multi-CZMs. Cohesive parameters of mechanical joined and adhesive bonded parts in hybrid joining were determined by numericalexperiment approximation technique. The crashworthiness of top-hat specimen joined by hybrid clinching was designed based on the crash analysis with multi-CZMs. Also, the crash test was performed to verify the effectiveness of multi-CZMs. In crash analysis and experiment, the hybrid clinched specimen absorbed 1778 J and 1814 J of impact energy at half of total penetration depth than mechanical clinched specimen, respectively.