• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.81-91
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• 2008

The weldability of resistance spot welding of TRIP1180 steels for automobile components investigated enhance in order to achieve understanding of weld fracture during tensile-shear strength (TSS) test. The main failure modes for spot welds of TRIP1180 steels were nugget pullout and interfacial fracture. The peak load to cause a weld interfacial failure was found to be related to fracture toughness of the weld and the weld diameter. Although interfacial fracture occurred in the spot welded samples, the load-carrying capacity of the weld was high and not significantly affected by the fracture mode. Substantial part of the weld exhibits the characteristic dimple (or elongated dimple) fractures on interfacial fractured surface also, dimple fracture areas were drawmatically increased with heat input which is propotional to the applied weld current. In spite of the high hardness values associated with the martensite microstructures due to high cooling rate. The high load-carrying ability of the weld is directly associated with the area of ductile fracture occurred in weld. Therefore, the judgment of the quality of resistance spot welds in TRIP1180 steels, the load-carrying capacity of the weld should be considered as an important factor than fracture mode.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.1-7
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• 2014

For the resistance spot welds of CR1180 and GA1180 TRIP steels, the weld quality evaluation method using the digitalized X-ray transmission imaging apparatus was investigated in comparison with the crosssectional examination method. In the case of the resistance spot welding of CR1180, three circular regions, such as WZ(white zone), GZ(grey zone) and DZ(dark zone), appeared on X-ray image and they corresponded to the diameters of indentation mark, nugget and corona bond, respectively. The variation of X-ray transmission thickness due to the thickness variation of the weld seemed to be mainly responsible for the formation of those contrasts. The X-ray image contrast formed from the variation of transmission thickness at the outer border line of DZ could also enable the inspections of the notch shape, nonuniformity of the welding pressure and spatter from its sharpness, concentricity and the normal straight line, respectively. The X-ray image of the resistance spot weld of galvannealed GA1180 TRIP steel was very similar to that of CR1180 TRIP steel except the crown shaped outer border line of DZ which was considered to be due to the melting behavior of zinc having the boiling temperature even lower than the melting temperature of steel.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Technology Engineers
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.598-603
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• 2009

Resistance spot welding has been investigated to apply for manufacturing car bodies because of its high productivity. So quality of resistance spot weld is one of the major concerns for both automobile and aerospace industry. Current design trends in automotive manufacture have shifted emphasis to alternative lightweight materials in order to aid in producing vehicles with higher fuel efficiency and lower down the vehicle emission level for environmental control. There is increasing emphasis to provide lighter cars. Therefore there is an effort to use high strength steels such as HSLA, dual phase, in car body. However there is used in restricted because of difficulty in producing consistently high quality resistance spot welds. In this study, resistance spot welding schedules were developed to achieve acceptable welds with improved static mechanical properties. Improved resistance spot welding schedules were developed using post heating current to reduce the cooling rate, or in-process tempering to reduce the hardness of the weld produced. The effects of resistance spot welding process parameter on hardening fracture mode and static mechanical properties of the joints were determined.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.64 no.11
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• pp.1571-1577
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• 2015

A new mixed mode control of constant power and constant current for resistance spot welding inverter is proposed to improve the weld quality. The conventional control scheme adopts constant current or constant power control mode, however, it is not easy to guarantee the high weld quality because of the nonlinear resistance characteristics of the welding point. The proposed method utilizes the nonlinear characteristics by measuring the dynamic resistance in real time. Therefore, it is possible for the welder to be controlled adaptively depending on the welding state. Experimental results show that the proposed control scheme improves the weld quality by 6.8 times compared with the conventional constant current mode control.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.239-245
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• 2004

Resistance spot weldability of coated steels for automobile applications was investigated. Test samples were prepared from commercial products of 0.8 mm in thickness. Based on the tensile-shear test, surface quality examination and cracking behavior, it was clear that aluminized steels showed good weldability. Microstructural inspection revealed that the coated materials was piled up at the split zone in the welding of aluminized steels. It was also demonstrated that no weld crack was found in the aluminized steel weld metal even the welding was carried out with higher current. However, through thickness cracks were detected at the weld metal of zinc coated steel. Small particles were found on the crack surface of zinc coated steel weld metal. It was thought that zinc vapor played key role to form the weld crack.

• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.199-202
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• 2007

The center floor is a part of underbody of cars. The assembling method is mostly a resistant spot welding. But the resistant spot welding has many demerits in productivity such as low welding speed, large spatter occurring, hard to verify the welding quality. The laser welding has many merits such as high welding speed, high static and dynamic weld strength. So the laser welding has been studied to substituted the resistant spot welding. Therefore, in this study, as a pre-evaluation stage for replacing the resistance spot welding with laser in production of automobile parts, the weldability of cold rolled and zinc coated steel sheets is studied and also evaluated the weld strength by the tensile shear test. And the shape of weld bead appearances and micro structure of the weld bead section is also evaluated.

• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.330-335
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• 2002

Resistance spot welding is one of the most widely used processes in sheet metal fabrication. Quality assurance of welding has been important to increase the productivity. In this study, weld quality estimation using primary circuit dynamic resistance applied to the in-process real-time systems. For quality estimation, factors relating to quality were extracted from the dynamic resistance, measured in the timer. The relationship between these factors and weld quality was determined through a artificial neural network model. This method has the advantage over the conventional one, such as obtaining the quality information without the use of extra devices.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.114-121
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• 2000

Since resistance spot welding has become one of the most popular sheet metal fabrication processes, a strong emphasis is being put on the quality of the welds. Throughout the years many quality estimation systems have been developed by many researchers to ensure weld quality. In this study, the process variables, which were monitored in the primary circuit of the welding machine, are used to estimate the weld quality with Hopfield neural network. The primary dynamic resistance is vectorized and stored as five patterns in the network. As the welding is done, the dynamic resistance patterns are recognized and the quality is estimated with the proposed method. Due to the primary process variables, it is possible to utilize this algorithms as an in-process real time quality monitoring system.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.70-75
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• 2003

Spot welding is a process that sheet metals are joined in one or more spot by heating at the faying interface. In this process, the spatter is dispersed from melted area. It has been reported that spatter generation has adverse effects on weld quality. However, no systematic study has been carried out to find out its effect on weld quality in resistance spot welding processes. In this study, specially designed specimen are used to perform experimental investigation of spatter generation and its effect. Major finding of this study show trends in tensile-shear strength for various amounts of spatter generated during spot welding process. Thus, optimum welding conditions are proposed in view of spatter generation and tensile-shear strength. (Received December 11, 2002)

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.46 no.10
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• pp.672-682
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• 2008

The resistance spot welding of TRIP590 steels was investigated to enhance understanding of weld fracture during tensile-shear strength (TSS) test. The main failure modes for spot welds of TRIP590 steels were nugget pullout and interfacial fracture. The peak load to cause a weld interfacial failure was found to be related to fracture toughness of the weld and the weld diameter. Although interfacial fracture occurred in the samples, the load carrying capacity of the weld was high and not significantly affected by the fracture mode. Substantial part of the weld exhibits the characteristic dimple (or elongated dimple) fractures on interfacial fractured surface, in spite of the high hardness values associated with the martensite microstructures. The high load-bearing ability of the weld is directly associated with the area of ductile fracture occurred in weld. Therefore, the judgment of the quality of resistance spot welds in TRIP590 steels, the load carrying capacity of the weld should be considered as an important factor than fracture mode.