Abstract: Vehicles such as automobile, trains, airplanes, rockets and spacecrafts are generally thin-walled structures. Lightweighting of the thin-walled structures becomes the key to improve the competitiveness of vehicle products. Considering the cost and effect of lightweighting, mixed use of multi-materials and multi-structures provides more options for product design of the thin-walled structures while reducing their weight, and becomes an inevitable tendency during lightweight process. Typical spot joining processes, e.g., resistance spot welding (RSW) and riveting are primary processes and important methods, which have been widely used to manufacture the thin-walled structures of traditional vehicles. However, the application of high specific strength materials, e.g., high strength steel, aluminum alloy, magnesium alloy, composite materials and lightweight structures such as extruded sections poses great challenges to the traditional spot joining processes, promoting the advancement of the spot joining process and the development of novel hybrid joining process. Therefore, this paper described the state of the art for RSW process, riveting process and hybrid spot joining process in recent years, and systematically summarized the corresponding research progress, advantages and disadvantages, application status and development trend, aiming to provide references for the design and manufacture of lightweight thin-walled structures.

Key words: lightweight thin-walled structure, spot joining process, resistance spot welding, riveting, hybrid spot joining