Fatigue Strength Evaluation of the Clinch Joints of a Cold Rolled Steel Sheet

Static tensile and fatigue tests were conducted using tensile-shear specimens to evaluate the fatigue strength of a SPCC sheet clinch joint. The maximum tensile strength of the specimen produced at the optimal punching force was 1750 kN. The fatigue endurance limit (=760 N) approached 43% of the maximum tensile load (=1750 N) at a load ratio of 0.1, suggesting that the fatigue limit is approximately half of the value of the maximum tensile strength. The FEM analysis showed that at the fatigue endurance limit, the maximum von-Mises stress of 373 MPa is very close to the ultimate tensile strength of the SPCC sheet (=382 MPa).