Steel-aluminum Knurled Interference Fits: Joining Process and Load Characteristics

AbstractAdvancing activities in lightweight construction, for example, in the area of electro mobility and the automotive industry more generally, require new material combinations as well as new manufacturing and joining techniques. For such technologies to be confidently applied, fundamental principles for design and estimation are necessary. In the past few years, knurled interference fits have become established in industrial applications because of their potential utility. However, established fundamental principles have been missing. This paper describes numerical investigations of the joining process of knurled interference fits and its influence on the load characteristics of the material combination 100Cr6/AlMgSi1. The described investigations include the influence of the shaft chamfer angle, the hub diameter ratio and the geometric interference. Finally, a new approach for the computation of the joining force was developed