Giovanna Rotella

Evaluation of mechanical and laser surface pre-treatments on the strength of adhesive bonded steel joints for the automotive industry

Abstract Recent research efforts in the automotive industry have been focused on the integration of high-strength steels within lightweight vehicles by using improved joining techniques. The present work falls in this subject area and is focused on the analysis of adhesive bonded dual-phase steel/epoxy joints for the automotive industry. Two quasi-static loadcases were considered, i.e. single-lap and T-peel tests, and various surface preparation strategies were evaluated. In particular, the mating surfaces were pre-treated by using pulsed laser irradiation with a fiber laser (1064 nm) and comparisons were made with degreasing and sand blasting. Moreover, the effects of bondline thickness and adhesive type were also assessed. To this aim, two epoxy adhesives with fairly different mechanical behavior (i.e. strain hardening versus elasto-plastic) were deployed for joints fabrication. Finally, T-peel tests were also carried out after sample cycling under controlled high humidity and temperature (i.e. accelerated aging). The obtained results highlighted the beneficial effect of laser irradiation on the joints’ mechanical behavior under both static and hydrothermal loadings.

On the Flow Stress Model Selection for Finite Element Simulations of Machining of Ti6Al4V

Numerical simulation of machining processes represents a promising tool able to reproduce the cutting conditions without the need to perform a large number of experimental tests. In order to obtain reliable results from the finite element method simulation, is then necessary to properly set up the simulation conditions and to implement the most suitable materials behavior according to the real workpiece characteristics. These data are available in commercial softwares libraries but often they have difficulties to properly represent the machined workpiece behavior. Thus, advanced model are implemented in the software to improve the simulations performance and to obtain realistic results. In this work, the more suitable materials flow stress, within those proposed in literature, is sought to simulate the machining process of Ti6Al4V. The results of the simulations have been compared with those obtained experimentally in terms of temperature, chip morphology and cutting force. The results confirm the need to properly select the materials flow stress model according to the physical sample.