Padded Self-Piercing Riveting (P-SPR) on Magnesium High Pressure Die Casting

Padded self-piercing riveting (P-SPR) is a newly developed multi-material joining technology to enable less ductile materials to be joined by self-piercing riveting (SPR) without cracking. A deformable and disposable pad was employed to reduce the stress distribution on the bottom surface by supporting the whole bottom sheet continuously during rivet setting process. To verify the P-SPR process, 2.0mm thick 6061-T6 wrought aluminum was joined with 3.2mm thick coated AM60B magnesium high pressure die casting (HPDC) by using 1.0mm thick dual-phase 600 (DP600) steel as the pad. Regular SPR processes with 2 different die geometries were studied as a comparison. Compared to the regular SPR processes, P-SPR demonstrated advantages on coating protection, crack mitigation and joint strength.