• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.75-84
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• 2008

With the development of surface roughness textured steel for automotive body-in-white assemble, one of key issues is to understand the role of the surface roughness in textured steel sheets. To investigate effect of surface roughness on weldability in prepared steels, electrode force was varied. Steel sheets (T-H) with high surface roughness ($Ra\;=\;1.94\;{\mu}m$) reduced electrode life. It was attributed to the higher contact resistance at the electrode-sheet interface in the presence of the high surface roughness. The increased electrode diameter decreased current density, therefore reducing weld electrode life due to small weld button size. When an increased electrode force was used, a significant increase in the electrode life was observed in welding of high surface roughness steel sheet. This study suggested that contact resistance at the electrode-sheet interface was the dominant factor, as compared to the sheet-sheet interface for determining electrode life in welding of surface roughness textured steel.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.43-50
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• 2013

The spot welds of Transformation Induced Plasticity (TRIP) steels are prone to interfacial failure and narrow welding current range. Hard microstructures in weld metal and heat affected zone arenormally considered as one of the main reason to accelerate the interfacial failure mode. There fore, detailed observation of weld microstructure for TRIP steels should be made to ensure better weld quality. However, it is difficult to characterize the microstructure, which has similar color, size, and shape using the optical or electron microscopy. The atomic force microscope (AFM) can help to analyze microstructure by using different energy levels for different surface roughness. In this study, the microstructures of resistance spot welds for AHSS are analyzed by using AFM with measuring the differences in average surface roughness. It has been possible to identify the different phases and their topographic characteristics and to study their morphology using atomic force microscopy in resistance spot weld TRIP steels. The systematic topographic study for each region of weldments confirmed the presence of different microstructures with height of 350nm for martensite, 250nm for bainite, and 150nm for ferrite, respectively.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.79-89
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• 2008

With the increased use of surface textured steel sheet in body-in-white assembly, resistance spot weldability of these steels is considered to be an important subject. This study evaluated nugget formation and weldability by measuring dynamic resistance with various weld pressure, current, and weld time for steel sheet with two different surface roughnesses. The surface roughness for T-H steel ($R_{a}=1.70\;{\mu}m$) was higher than that for T-L steel ($R_{a}=1.33\;{\mu}m$), and resulted in increased contact resistance and heating for T-H steel spot welding. Therefore, at low weld current and weld cycle ranges, the T-H steel showed better weldability over the T-L steel. The evaluations of weld interface showed that the fusion zone in the T-H steel sheet was continuous in contrast to discontinuous fusion zone for T-L steel sheet at the same welding conditions. A comparison of dynamic resistance and tensile-shear strength (TSS) between T-H and T-L steel sheet suggested that high surface roughness provided larger heating at early cycle of welding and larger TSS.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.66-73
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• 2010

Conventional fracture test of resistance spot weld had been performed without consideration of paint baking process in automobile manufacturing line. This study was aim to investigate the effect of paint baking on fracture mode and load carrying capacity in fracture test for resistance spot welded 780TRIP steels. With paint baking cycle after resistance spot welds, peel tests and microhardness were conducted on the as-welded and baked samples. Resistance spot welds in AHSS (Advanced High Strength Steels) are prone to display partial interfacial fractures during fracture test or vehicle crash. Baking cycle increased the load-carrying capacity of the resistance spot welded samples and improved the fracture appearance from partial to full button fracture for the L-type peel tests. Specially, the differences in fracture appearance are apparent when the nugget size of spot welds is small enough to produce the partial interfacial fracture. The comparison of macrohardness and microstructure between as-welded and baked samples showed that there are no large difference in change the fracture mode. However, the results of the instrumented indentation test suggested that fusion zone and HAZ of baked sample have less tensile and yield strength and proves that the tempering effects are applied and enhanced the resistance to fracture on welds with application of baking cycle.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.256-263
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• 2015

Electric resistance spot welding has been used to join overlapped steel sheets in automotive bodies. Recently to reduce weight in automotive vehicles, non-ferrous metals are being used or considered in car bodies for hoods, trunk lids, doors parts, etc. Various welding processes such as laser welding, self-piercing rivet, friction stir welding are being used. In the current study, a new electric resistance heated friction stir spot welding is suggested for the spot welding of non-ferrous metals. The welding method can be characterized by three uses of heat -- electric resistance heating, friction stir heating and conduction heating of steel electrodes -- for the fusion joining at the interfacial zone between the two sheets. The welding process has variables such as welding current, diameter of the steel electrodes, revolutions per minute (rpm) of the friction stir pin, and the insert depth of the stir pin. In order to obtain the optimal welding variables, which provide the best welding strength, many experiments were conducted. From the experiments, it was found that the welding strength could be reached to the required production value by using an electrode diameter of 10mm, a current of 7.6kA, a stirring speed of 400rpm, and an insert depth of 0.8mm for the electric resistance heated friction stir spot welding of 5052 aluminum 1.5mm sheets.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Technology Engineers
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.373-379
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• 2016

Low carbon steel is usually used as the outer panel with low base metal resistance compared to the inner reinforced panel made with high strength steel, which makes it difficult to form a robust nugget. To overcome welding problems of a dissimilar three-sheet combination made of SGACEN, DP980 and CP1180, a cover plate was inserted between the upper electrode and SGACEN. The quality of the nugget was analyzed by comparing the welding signals and cross sectional images under maximum heat input both with and without the cover plate. To analyze the mechanical of weld properties, a hardness test analysis was conducted. To enhance the reliability of experimental results, temperature distributions were obtained using a simulation program. The method of inserting a cover plate led to a change in the heat input, which induced a larger nugget size between SGACEN and DP980.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.29-36
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• 2012

The resistance spot welding of high strength steel degrades the weldability because of its high strength with rich chemical composition and coating layer to protect from corrosion. During the each resistance welding process the electrodes tip reacts with coating layer, then subsequently deteriorates and shorten electrode life. In this study, the Al-coated HPF (Hot Press Forming) steels and Zn-coated TRIP steels were used to investigate the electrode life for resistance spot welding. Experimental results show that the reactivity of Al-coating on HPF steels to electrode tip surface behaviors different from the conventional Zn-coated high strength steels. The electrode tip diameter and nugget size in electrode life test of Al-coated HPF steels are observed to be constant with respect to weld numbers. For Al-coated HPF steels, the hard aluminum oxide layer being formed during high temperature heat treatment process reduces reactivity with copper electrode during the resistance welding process. Eventually, the electrode life in resistance spot welding of Al-coated HPF steels has the advantage over the galvanized steel sheets.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.115-119
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• 2013

The resistance spot welding of high strength steel degrades the weldability because of its high strength with rich chemical composition and coating layer to protect from corrosion. And the weld Expulsion is prone to occur and severely affect the nugget guality when the initial gap between automatic borrowing galvanied steel sheets(SGARC35) and Zn-coateel trip steels(GA580TRIP and GA980 TRIP) exist in resistance spot welding(RSW). RSW is one of the most popular welding processes used to join sheet metals. but weld guality sometimes do creases due to welding condition. in this paper to verity tue weldability using spot welding with the hemispherically concaved electrode, tensile shear strength and cross-tensile strength were measured by a universal test machine. in addition, the nugget size on cross-sectional area of the weld was observed by optical and electron microscopy. As a result, the nugget size of this specimen is increased with increasing welding current and Max load of tensile-shear strength is increased with welding current is increasing.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.71-76
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• 2010

The use of advanced high-strength steels (AHSS) in automotive applications has steadily increased over the past few years. Two different failure modes are generally observed in shear-tension tests for resistance spot welds of AHSS. interfacial fractures and full button pullout. Despite high load-carrying capacity. the resistance spot welds in AHSS cue prone to interfacial fractures. To improve the load carrying ability of welds during shear-lap and cross tension tests. the tip surface of the electrode was grooved in a round shape. The electrode tip surface was modified so as to concentrate the current now in the central and circumferential portion of the electrode force. The results showed that the interfacial fracture was suppressed in welds using the modified electrode. In a comparison of failure mode during mechanical tests. the welds made with the modified electrode showed a higher tendency to fail via full button pullout fracture.

• Composites Research
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.28-34
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• 2006

[ $Cu-TiB_2$ ] metal matrix composites with various weight fractions of $TiB_2$ were fabricated by combination of manufacturing process, SPS (self-propagating high-temperature synthesis) and SPS (spark plasma sintering). The feasibility of $Cu-TiB_2$ composites for welding electrodes and sliding contact material was investigated through experiments on the tensile properties, hardness and wear resistance. To obtain desired properties of composites, composites are designed according to reinforcement's shape, size and volume fraction. Thus proper modeling is essential to predict the effective material properties. The elastic moduli of composites obtained by FEM and tensile test were compared with effective properties from the original Eshelby model, Eshelby model with Mori-Tanaka theory and rule-of-mixture. FEM result showed almost the same value as the experimental modulus and it was found that Eshelby model with Mori-Tanaka theory predicted effective modulus the best among the models.