Analysis of Resistance Spot Welding Process Parameters Effect on the Weld Quality of Three-steel Sheets Used in Automotive Industry: Experimental and Finite Element Simulation

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 School of Mechanical Engineering, Sharif University of Technology,

2 Department of Mechanical and Instrumental Engineering, Academy of Engineering, Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University), Moscow, Russia

3 School of Mechanical Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

4 IKCO, 14th Km, Karaj Highway, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

In the present research, the effects of spot-welding process parameters on the nugget diameter and electrode penetration depth of spot-welded joints were investigated. To achieve this, a spot-welded joint of three-thin sheet low carbon steels (same thicknesses of 0.8 mm) was simulated as an electerical-thermal-mechanical coupling of 3D finite element model. After validating the finite element simulation presented in this study by comparison with the experimental results for the spot diameter, various cases of spot welds were analyzed based on the design on experiment (i.e., Taguchi method). Six variables including electrode force, electric current, and quadrilateral times (squeeze, up-slope, welding time, and hold) at three different levels were considered as Taguchi algorithm inputs. The results of Taguchi sensitivity analysis showed that the parameters of electrical current (22 %) and welding time (17 %) are the most effective factors on the nugget diameter. Next, Multiple Regression Technique (MRT) was used to present a new equation for calculating spot diameter via the process parameters. The findings of this study showed that the difference between FE results and MRT for predicting spot diameter is less than 13%. Eventually, Response Surface Method (RSM) was utilized to determine the interaction effects of process parameters on the spot weld quality.

Keywords

References

 
1. Mirzaei, F., Ghorbani, H. and Kolahan, F., "Numerical modeling
and optimization of joint strength in resistance spot welding of
galvanized steel sheets", The International Journal of
Advanced Manufacturing Technology,  Vol. 92, No. 9-12,
(2017), 3489-3501. 
2. Eshraghi, M., Tschopp, M.A., Zaeem, M.A. and Felicelli, S.D.,
"A parametric study of resistance spot welding of a dual-phase
steel using finite element analysis", in Proceedings of the 8th Pacific Rim International Congress on Advanced Materials and
Processing, Springer., (2013), 3073-3080. 
3. Butt, A. and Saleem, I., "Optimization of spot welding processes
in low carbon hot rolled sheets", in 19thWorld Conference on
Non-Destructive Testing., (2016). 
4. Anand, K., Elangovan, S. and Rathinasuriyan, C., "Modeling
and prediction of weld strength in ultrasonic metal welding
process using artificial neural network and multiple regression
method", Materials Science & Engineering International
Journal,  Vol. 2, No. 2, (2018), 40-47. 
5. Thakur, A., Rao, T., Mukhedkar, M. and Nandedkar, V.,
"Application of taguchi method for resistance spot welding of
galvanized steel", ARPN Journal of engineering and Applied
Sciences,  Vol. 5, No. 11, (2010), 22-26. 
6. Sun, H., Yang, J. and Wang, L., "Resistance spot welding quality
identification with particle swarm optimization and a kernel
extreme learning machine model", The International Journal
of Advanced Manufacturing Technology,  Vol. 91, No. 5-8,
(2017), 1879-1887. 
7. Vignesh, K., Perumal, A.E. and Velmurugan, P., "Optimization
of resistance spot welding process parameters and
microstructural examination for dissimilar welding of aisi 316l
austenitic stainless steel and 2205 duplex stainless steel", The
International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing
Technology,  Vol. 93, No. 1-4, (2017), 455-465. 
8. Chen, F., Tong, G., Yue, X., Ma, X. and Gao, X., "Multiperformance
optimization of small-scale resistance spot welding process parameters for joining of ti-1al-1mn thin foils using
hybrid approach", The International Journal of Advanced
Manufacturing Technology,  Vol. 89, No. 9-12, (2017), 36413650.
9. Chen, F., Wang, Y., Sun, S., Ma, Z. and Huang, X., "Multiobjective
optimization of mechanical quality and stability during micro
resistance spot welding", The International Journal of
Advanced Manufacturing Technology,  Vol. 101, No. 5-8,
(2019), 1903-1913. 
10. Wan, X., Wang, Y. and Zhao, D., "Quality monitoring based on
dynamic resistance and principal component analysis in small
scale resistance spot welding process", The International
Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology,  Vol. 86,
No. 9-12, (2016), 3443-3451. 
11. Wan, X., Wang, Y. and Zhao, D., "Multiple quality
characteristics prediction and parameter optimization in smallscale
resistance spot welding", Arabian Journal for Science
and Engineering,  Vol. 41, No. 5, (2016), 2011-2021. 
12. Pouranvari, M. and Marashi, S., "Failure behavior of three-steel
sheets resistance spot welds: Effect of joint design", Journal of
Materials Engineering and Performance,  Vol. 21, No. 8,
(2012), 1669-1675.  
International Journal of Engineering
Volume 33, Issue 1
TRANSACTIONS A: Basics
January 2020
Pages 148-157

Files

Cited by

Share

How to cite

Statistics