Dickblechclinchen - Innovatives Fügeverfahren für den Stahlbau

Clinching of thick sheets - innovative joining technology for steelwork.

Clinching, which is mechanical joining by upsetting, is above all established in the area of automotive industry as well as in appliance and electronic industry. The universality, economic efficiency, an easy manageability and the fact that the process is good automatable are documented by several research activities. Currently the process application is mainly restrained on connections of thin sheets in the named sector of industry. Investigations done by Fraunhofer IWU point out the possibility of using this high efficiency and innovative joining technology even for applications with distinctly higher sheet thicknesses. An adoption of clinching is conceivable and desirable for railway vehicle or truck manufacturing and shipbuilding as well as for steelwork generally in near future due to its specific technology characteristics. The transfer of knowledge from the thin sheet automotive sector to the sheet thicknesses used in steelwork as well as the numerical supported system development are focus of the research activities at Fraunhofer IWU.