JOINING TECHNOLOGY
Plastic-metal
superimposed upon it by an appropriately modified metal surface. In extensive
investigations 30 left-right knurling (criss-cross knurling) has turned out to be
extremely suitable as a form-fitting assistance.
JOHANNES KUNZ
DEJAN LUKIC
n principle press fits are frictional
I joints which are fixed and detachable
under certain conditions. They are
based on the fact that on joining, an over-
size in one of the two usually cylindrical
surfaces is overcome by forced deforma-
tion and converted into mechanical
stresses between the mated parts forming
the joint. These normal stresses together
with the friction between the mated parts
allow axial forces and torques to be trans-
mitted. In the case of press fits involving
Fig. 1. Active and passive form-fitting assis-
tance: Principle of action
Translated from Kunststoffe 12/2006, pp. 6871
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2006 Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich, Germany
Press Fits
or between plastic parts, however, the
transmittable forces and torques are lim-
ited particularly because, as a result of the
viscoelastic behaviour immediately after
joining, stress relaxation sets in. Suitable
geometric modifications in the design of
metal shafts involved in such joints can
bring about a certain degree of form-fit-
ting which aids the frictional linkage. The
effect of this measure is twofold: on the
one hand, it increases the transmittable
force and, on the other hand, it can slow
down relaxation [13].
Active and Passive Form-fitting
Assistance
In an earlier article it was explained that
due to the mechanical processes in the
material a distinction has to be made pri-
marily between active and passive form-
fitting assistance [4], it being also possi-
ble for both types to occur in combina-
tion. Active form-fitting assistance arises
when a volume of plastic is displaced by
appropriately shaped convex elements
which are formed on the shaft and locat-
ed outside the diameter of fit. In contrast,
passive forming-fitting assistance is ob-
tained as a result of restitution, i.e. after
relief of stress, backward creep of the dis-
placed volume of plastic into appropri-
ately shaped concave elements which are
formed on the shaft and located inside the
diameter of fit (Fig. 1).
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Form-fitting Aid. Press fits
between plastic parts and
metal shafts become substan-
tially more effective when the
frictional linkage has a suit-
able degree of form-fitting
Furthermore, it is important with re-
gard to the design measure to be under-
taken whether the form-fitting assistance
should act axially or tangentially, that is
to say to prevent translational or rota-
tional movement between the shaft and
the hub.
Twofold Mode of Action
A simple technical consideration allows
the twofold action of form-fitting assis- 8 PE103765
tance to be quantitatively evaluated. A ba-
sis of comparison in doing this is provid-
ed by the purely frictional joint with the
same nominal geometry, that is to say with
a cylindrical shaft having a smooth surface.
If the variables FF and FL represent the join-
ing and loosening forces respectively of the
joint axially assisted by form-fitting and
FF0 and FL0 represent those of the purely
frictional comparative joint, the total in-
crease in loosening force FLFL0 can be
broken down into the actual increase in
force FL and the component FL for the
slowing down of relaxation (Fig. 2).
The actual increase in force is the dif-
ference FL between the theoretical loos-
ening force FL and the loosening force FL0
of the comparative joint. This results from
the assumption that the ratio of the join-
ing forces for the modified and the
smooth shaft also applies to loosening.
This is the case in particular for form-fit-
ting assistance which on account of its
1
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 JOINING TECHNOLOGY
symmetry acts equally in the joining and
in the loosening direction. From this it
follows that the relative increase in force
is given by the relationship:
F L F
CF = = F
F L0 F F 0
where FF and FF0 are the measured join-
ing forces of the joint aided by form-fit-
ting and of the smooth comparative joint
respectively.
The relative slowing down of relaxation
is the ratio of the effective loosening force
FL and the theoretical loosening force FL.
It can be expressed by four measurable
force variables in the following form:
FL FL FF 0
CR = = (2)
F L F F F L 0
when FL from (1) is determined and sub-
stituted.
Starting from the loosening force FL0
for the smooth comparison shaft it is now
Fig. 3. Left-right knurling: definition of terms
possible using (1) and (2) to determine
the loosening force FL expected for the
joint aided by form-fitting by means of
the simple equation:
F L = C F C R F L0 = C F L0
and the joining force FF required for the
joint aided by form-fitting is given corre-
spondingly by:
F F = C F F L0
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2006 Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich, Germany
Fig. 2. Twofold action
of form-fitting assis-
tance: Increasing
force and slowing
down relaxation
In order to estimate the effective join-
ing and loosening forces FF and FL by
means of (3) and (4) respectively, the or-
ders of magnitude of the relative increase
in force and the relative slowing down of
(1) relaxation must be known either from de-
sign recommendations or from personal
experience.
The same applies by analogy to tan-
gential form-fitting, the forces being re-
placed by the corresponding torques.
Since, however, the joining forces FF and
FF0 in equations (1) and (2) are not rel-
evant variables, they are usefully replaced
by the loosening torques ML and ML0
measured immediately after joining.
By making use of measurements the
effectiveness of a measure favouring
form-fitting assistance can now be eval-
uated on the basis of the factors CF and
CR. There is effective form-fitting assis-
tance when the relative increase in force
CF is significantly greater than 1. In the
case of the slowing down of relaxation
CR a value greater than 1 would likewise
be desirable.
Knurling as a Form-fitting
Assistance
Many detailed aspects of the topic of
form-fitting assistance have already been
investigated previously [5]. On this basis
(3)
(4)
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the aim in the present paper is to exam-
ine left-right knurled surfaces (DIN 82
[6]) in more detail with regard to their ef-
fects in aiding axial and tangential form-
fitting [7]. As is well known, knurled sur-
faces are relatively simple to produce. As
a general rule they exercise a combined
active and passive effect: on the one hand,
the peaks in the knurling displace plastic
and then the latter deforms as a function
of time back into the intervening recess-
es. The point now was to quantify the ef-
fectiveness of the measure of using
knurled surfaces on the basis of the rela-
tionships (1) and (2) and, building on
this, to evaluate the suitability of differ-
ent knurled surfaces for use in practice.
The test specimens consisted of a plas-
tic hub, composed of the polyacetal
copolymer Tecaform POM C natural
(supplier: Kundert AG, Jona/Switzerland)
in the form of a sleeve, and a steel shaft
with a knurled surface or a smooth sur-
face having a nominal diameter of 15 mm.
For the difference (oversize) between the
nominal diameter of the shaft and the in-
ternal diameter of the hub 0.3 mm was
chosen, corresponding to an expansion of
2 %.
On the basis of knowledge obtained to
date, shafts having three different forms
of left-right knurling were defined for the
present investigation, namely two cross
knurls of 0.8/45 and 1/45 as well as a
criss-cross knurl of 1/30, the first num-
ber designating the pitch and the num-
ber after the slash being the angle with re-
spect to the axial direction (Fig. 3). The
fitting length was set at 30 mm. The
knurled surfaces were very carefully
milled. Special care was taken to ensure
that the prominences were cleanly formed
so that when the specimens were joined
the plastic part sustained as little damage
as possible. The smooth shafts required
for comparison were finely ground to sur-
face roughness N5 corresponding to a
depth of roughness Ra of 0.4 mm (Fig. 4).
Fig. 4. Steel shaft,
smooth finish
Kunststoffe international 12/2006

Fig. 5. Test device for tangential form-fitting
assistance
Axial form-fitting assistance was in-
vestigated on a tensile testing machine on
which the specimens were both joined
and loosened and the forces required for
this were measured. For measuring the
tangential form-fitting assistance a test
device was specially designed and built
so that the required reproducibility could
be guaranteed (Fig. 5) [8]. Interestingly,
the specimens with knurled shafts exhib-
ited distinctly lower scatter of the meas-
ured values than those with a smooth
shaft, this being already the case for the
joining forces.
While the hubs for axial form-fitting
assistance could be constructed with sim-
ple geometry (Fig. 6), for the tangential
form-fitting assistance a variant had to be
devised in which the torque can be ap-
plied at the end face in the test device
without substantially interfering with the
joining zone. For this purpose the fitting
length of the hub was unchanged and its
internal diameter slightly increased but it
was extended axially on one side and pro-
vided with six bores into which corre-
sponding drive pins of the test device
could engage (Fig. 7). For application of
a moment through tangential forces on
the outer contour it would not have been
possible to retain the basic cylindrical
geometry and the state of stress would
Axial form-fitting assistance
Fig. 8. Axial form-fitting assistance by knurls: action variables realized
Kunststoffe international 12/2006
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2006 Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich, Germany
have been altered in uncertain and com-
plex fashion.
Previous experience allowed the test to
be limited to two periods of 10 and 1000
hours. In this way three decades were cap-
tured and the total number of specimens
was kept low. For each variation of pa-
rameters three test specimens were inves-
tigated.
Conclusions for Use in Practice
Although it was not possible to conduct
a more comprehensive study program, a
series of interesting findings of use in
practical design was obtained. Overall
they confirm that in press fits with plas-
tic hubs, knurled metal shafts are highly
suitable as a form-fitting aid. The most
effective measure turned out to be criss-
cross knurling.
In axial form-fitting assistance the two
knurls with a 45 angle proved to be vir-
tually identical, with the smaller pitch of
0.8 mm having a slight advantage (Fig. 8).
However, relaxation in the first decade
was accelerated a little instead of being
slowed down as desired. By comparison
the criss-cross knurling had less effect in
Tangential form-fitting assistance
Kunststoffe
Fig. 9. Tangential form-fitting assistance by knurls: action variables real-
ized
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JOINING TECHNOLOGY
increasing force but slowed down relax-
ation very significantly. Interestingly, the
criss-cross knurling with a factor
C = CF CR 4.7 after 1000 hours exhib-
ited, even axially, the greatest effect over-
all as a form-fitting aid.
In tangential form-fitting assistance
the criss-cross knurl dominated as ex-
pected (Fig. 9) and this was accomplished
with an astonishing total value of C 9
after 1000 hours. The other two geome-
tries are a long way behind but neverthe-
less have a C value of about 6. Earlier stud-
ies had shown that a knurl with axially
parallel ridges (DIN 82 RAA) does not
Fig. 6. Hub composed of POM for axial
form-fitting assistance
Fig. 7. Hub composed
of POM for tangential
form-fitting assis-
tance
Kunststoffe
3
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 JOINING TECHNOLOGY
achieve the effect of a left-right knurl de-
spite the angle of 0.
Knurling with its combined active and
passive mode of action surpasses purely
passive form-fitting assistance by a sig-
nificant factor. As earlier studies [5] had
shown, relaxation is slowed down very
little by a passive form-fitting aid and for
the relative increase in force values of
about 1.21.4 were obtained. Effects in
this range may suffice at any rate for the
axial self-locking of bolts which are not
placed under load by an axial force or by
a torque.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The present work was carried out in the course of the
research project Basic Principles in the Design of
Plastic Structures. For funding this work the authors
express their thanks to the Gebert Rf Stiftung
(Gebert Rf Foundation), Basel, and to the Research
Fund of the HSR Hochschule fr Technik Rapperswil.
4 Carl Hanser Verlag, Mnchen
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2006 Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich, Germany
REFERENCES
1 Schmidt, H.: Pressverbindungen bei Kunststoff-
teilen, Teil 2: Manahmen zur Steigerung der
Belastbarkeit. Kunststoffe 66 (1976) 3,
pp. 170173
2 Erhard, G., Strickle, E.: Pressverbindung von
gerndelten Bolzen mit Kunststoffbauteilen.
Konstruktion Elemente Methoden 1976/9,
pp. 5860
3 Anon: Berechnen von Pressverbindungen. Hoechst
AG, Company publication B. 3.4, Frankfurt/Main
1992
4 Kunz, J.: Formschluss untersttzt Kunststoff-
Pressverbindung. Kunststoffe-Synthetics 49 (2002)
6, pp. 1517
5 Keller, R., Sallenbach, R., Hausmann, J.,
Zurkirchen, M., Schweizer, R., Schdler, B., Loher,
T.: Studies and diploma theses on the subject of
form-fitting assistance in press fits involving
plastics. HSR Hochschule fr Technik Rapperswil,
19912001
6 DIN 82: Rndel. Beuth-Verlag Berlin, 1973
www.kunststoffe-international.com Not for use in internet or intranet sites. Not for electronic distribution.
7 Kunz, J., Lukic, D., Furrer, F., Studer, M.: Research
project on form-fitting assistance in press fits
involving plastics. Miscellaneous internal, unpub-
lished documents. HSR Hochschule fr Technik
Rapperswil, 20042006
8 Arpagaus, B.: Entwicklung einer Prfeinrichtung
fr die azimutale Formschlussuntersttzung von
Pressverbindungen mit Kunststoffen. Study at the
HSR Hochschule fr Technik Rapperswil, 2004
THE AUTHORS
PROF. DIPL.-ING. JOHANNES KUNZ, born in 1940,
Institut fr Werkstofftechnik und Kunststoffverar-
beitung (IWK; Institute for Materials Technology and
Plastics Processing) at the HSR Hochschule fr Tech-
nik Rapperswil, Switzerland; jkunz@hsr.ch
DIPL.-ING. DEJAN LUKIC, born in 1972, member of
the scientific staff at IWK
Kunststoffe international 12/2006