Development of a Procedure for Forming Assisted Thermal Joining of Tubes

摘要

With the demand of lightweight design in the automotive industry, not only the wall-thicknesses of tubular components of the chassis or spaceframe are continuously decreased. Also the thicknesses of exhaust system parts are reduced to save material and mass. However, thinner tubular parts bring about additional challenges in j oining. Welding or brazing methods, which are utilized in joining tubes with specific requirements concerning leak tightness, are sensitive to the gap between the joining partners. Furthermore, a large joining area is required to ensure the durability of the joint. The introduction of a forming step in the assembled state prior to thermal joining can define and control the gap for subsequent brazing or welding. The mechanical pre-joint resulting from the previously described calibration step also results in easier handling of the tubes prior to thermal joining. In the presented investigation, a spinning process is utilized to produce force-fit joints of varying lengths and diameter reduction and form-fit joints with varying geometrical attributes. The spinning process facilitates a high formability and geometrical flexibility, while at the achievable precision is high and the process forces are low. The strength ofthejoints is used to evaluate the joint quality. Finally, a comparison between joints produced by forming with subsequent brazing and original tube is conducted, which presents the high performance of the developed procedure for forming assisted thermal joining.