Development and Implementation of a Joining-Technology Selector for Multi-Material Joints

Abstract

Car manufacturers have to follow strict environmental regulations. This is one of the reasons for the increase of lightweight design concepts, which is often realised in the form of multi-material structures. The problem with this is finding suitable joining technologies which is especially challenging for smaller companies with limited resources. For this reason, this work investigated the automated selection of joining technologies for complex multi-material structures. In this regard, the following hypothesis was tested: 'If an appropriate selection methodology is implemented in a program, then it is possible to select the optimal joining technology for a given multi-material joining problem from an underlying database.' Furthermore, research questions regarding database structures, selection methodologies and programming have been answered. Seven fundamental selection approaches from previous research have been analysed and investigated on their compliance with set requirements. It was found that none of the selection methodologies is able to satisfy every requirement which necessitated the creation of a new approach. The new methodology was created by combining the questionnaire and free search approach and has been implemented into a Python program with a built-in graphical user interface. The required technical data was collected from 158 single-lap shear joint experiments from research and stored in a hierarchical database with multiple linked data-tables. Using two examples as a validation method, it was concluded that the created tool is an efficient and effective way to identify the optimal joining technology. As such, the hypothesis was accepted and the JTS is considered to be a powerful, resource efficient tool for the assistance of selecting joining technologies for multi-material structures.