The mechanical properties after age hardening heat treatment and the kinetics of related phase transformations of high strength AlZnMgCu alloy AA 7068 were investigated. The experimental work includes differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), differential fast scanning calorimetry (DFSC), sophisticated differential dilatometry (DIL), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), as well as hardness and tensile tests. For the kinetic analysis of quench induced precipitation by dilatometry new metrological methods and evaluation procedures were established. Using DSC, dissolution behaviour during heating to solution annealing temperature was investigated. These experiments allowed for identification of the appropriate temperature and duration for the solution heat treatment. Continuous cooling experiments in DSC, DFSC, and DIL determined the kinetics of quench induced precipitation. DSC and DIL revealed several overlapping precipitation reactions. The critical cooling rate for a complete supersaturation of the solid solution has been identified to be 600 to 800 K/s. At slightly subcritical cooling rates quench induced precipitation results in a direct hardening effect resulting in a technological critical cooling rate of about 100 K/s, i.e., the hardness after ageing reaches a saturation level for cooling rates faster than 100 K/s. Maximum yield strength of above 600 MPa and tensile strength of up to 650 MPa were attained.

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Mechanical clinching is an ef- ficient join- ing tech- nique fre- quently used in the au- tomotive industry to join sub- assemblies of the car body. Dur- ing me- chanical clinching, the ma- terial in the joint is cold worked altering the cyclic material proper- ties and affecting the per- formance of the joint under cyclic loading. The pa- per presents an approach for fatigue life es- timation of clinched joints us- ing the Local Strain Approach. Numer- ical sim- ulation is utilized to retrieve local stresses and strains in the crit- ical re- gion. Ex- perimen- tal inves- tigation is presented to vali- date the crack ini- tiation lo- cation and an assess- ment of the fa- tigue life estima- tion is car- ried out.

Joining by forming is a commonly applied technique in the automotive industry to assemble parts of thin metal sheets to meet the demands of lightweight design. The joining operation induces changes in material behaviour due to cold forming, that can be observed in increased hardness in the area close to the joint neck compared to the base material. Complex geometrical features of clinched joints on a small scale and the lack of non-destructive methods to track local stresses and strains require a combined approach utilizing numerical and experimental techniques. Numerical process and loading simulation are performed utilizing commercial finite element software LS-Dyna®. Hardness measurements in the joint are carried out to assess the impact of forming operation. Cyclic material properties are derived from Vickers hardness to estimate fatigue life with the Local Strain Approach using the damage parameter PSWT. Fatigue life estimation with failure criterion crack initiation obtained from simulation results is compared to those from experiments. The results obtained indicate that the Local Strain Approach is suitable for fatigue life estimations of clinched joints under constant amplitude loading as long as the influence of the forming process is considered.