The effects of the curing degree of the adhesive during clinching on the forming process and the mechanical performance of the clinch-adhesive joints made of AA5754 Aluminum Alloy, Q235 steel, and Araldite 2015 epoxy adhesive are investigated. First, a differential scanning calorimeter is employed in the curing experiment on the epoxy adhesive to collect the temperature heating rates in order to implement a curing reaction kinetic model that adopts the cure time as the only parameter. Second, the curing effects on the forming, mechanical performance, and failure mode of the clinch-adhesive joints are evaluated under five different curing degrees of the adhesive, including uncured, half-cured, and completely cured states. Finally, the dynamic failure processes of the hybrid joints under tensile-shear and peeling loads are investigated using a digital image correlation system. The results show that a clinch-adhesive joint, which is manufactured when the adhesive is uncured, achieves the highest level of mechanical performance, the hybrid joints that are produced using adhesives in half-cured states present low performance due to defects in the neck and "S" shape locking; specially, hybrid joints are manufactured when curing degree is 0.57, experience neck fractures and thus have the lowest mechanical performance.
