Form-based manufacturing of aluminium and steel auxiliary joining elements as the basis for an efficient joining operation

Abstract. Reducing the weight of vehicles can significantly lower the energy or fuel consumed and thus the emissions during operation. One possibility to assess this is the use of a property adapted multi-material systems containing high strength steel, light metals like aluminium or magnesium and fibre reinforced plastics. While expanding the number of materials used new challenges arise for the production and furthermore the joining technology to manufacture the vehicle made of the multi-material systems. One approach to overcome these challenges is to use innovative and adaptable joining techniques which allows the manufacturing of joints of different material combinations. Extensive research activities on the two stage thermo-mechanical joining process with adaptable joining elements was able to demonstrate the great potentials in terms of joining dissimilar materials with good strength. The previously kinematic and path-based fabrication of auxiliary joining elements is modified in this publication to a form-based approach with a perspective of establishing an efficient process chain using easily and cheaply available rods. Based on the new approach to produce the auxiliary joining elements, it can be demonstrated that a reproducible production of the geometry is possible for the investigated steel as well as aluminium material.