Clinching is becoming increasingly popular for joining sheet metal in the automotive and aerospace sectors.

In clinching, a punch and die are used to plastically form a mechanical interlock between metal sheets. The technique produces a round, button-type connection between two to four layers of sheet metal. The process can join metal sheets of different thicknesses or materials, and it will not damage anticorrosive coatings on the metal. The minimum thickness for any one sheet in the assembly is 0.1 millimeter, and the entire stack can be up to 12 millimeters thick.