• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.112-121
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• 1994

This paper discusses the feasibility of ultrasonic C-scan technique for nondestructive evaluation of spot weld quality. Ultrasonic evaluation for spot weld quality was performed by immersion method with the mechanical and the electronic scanning of point-focussed ultrasonic beam(25 MHz). For the sake of the approach to the quantitative measurement of nugget diameter and the discrimination of the corona bond from nugget, preliminary infinitesimal gap experiment by newton ring is tried in order to set up the optimum ultrasonic test condition. Ultrasonic image data obtained were confirmed and compared by optical microscope and SAM(Scanning Acoustic Microscope) observation of the spot-weld cross section. The results show that the nugget diameter can be measured with the accuracy of 1.0mm, and voids included in nugget can be detected to $10{\mu}m$ extent with simplicity and accuracy. Finally, it was found that it is necessary to make a profound study of definite discrimination of corona bond from nugget and the approach of quantitative evaluation of nugget diameter by utilizing the various image processing techniques.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers Conference
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• 2001.04a
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• pp.61-65
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• 2001

A new flaw detection technique using by SH angle beam method has been discussed. The SH-wave is horizontally polarized shear wave and the surface SH wave has a characteristic of traveling along near surface layer. The surface SH wave technique is valuable for the detection of fatigue cracks at fillet weld heels which cannot be detected by other ultrasonic technique such as angle beam technique and The dispersion curves of it has simple characterization. In this work, using these beneficial chraterization, quality evaluation of spot weld with ultrasonic sound intensity of SH-wave passing through nugget area of spot weld are verified experimentally.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.13-20
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• 2015

Many automotive companies are endeavoring to improve the quality of resistance spot welding by updating body-in-white (BIW) production line with adaptive control spot welding system to compensate the process disturbances such as gap, electrode wear, oxidized surfaces, poor fit up and adhesive etc. Most of the commercial adaptive weld controllers require proper "Initial Welding Schedule" or "Reference weld" to achieve compensation in welding parameters during real time welding. In this study, the compensation of a commercial adaptive weld controller had been observed and analyzed thoroughly for various process disturbances to find optimal initial welding schedule. It was observed that 90 percent of the expulsion current in constant current control as reference welding schedule conferred the maximum button diameter in adaptive control welding. Finally, effects of each disturbance in combined field disturbances system with adaptive control had also been confirmed with the design of experiment (DOE) by minitab(R)16 for combined disturbances situation and suitability of optimum initial weld current had also established with real body part validation test.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.39-43
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• 2012

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.209-214
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• 2005

Spot welding is the most widely used in automotive and aerospace industries. The quality of weld depends upon the size of nugget between the overlapped steel plates. Recently, the thickness of the steel plates is much thinner and hence, it introduces the smaller size of nugget. Therefore, it is necessary not only to develop the criterion to evaluate the quality of weld but also to obtain the optimal welding conditions for the better performance. In this paper, the steel plates, 0.5 mm through 1.5 mm thickness, have been spot welded at different welding conditions and the nugget sizes are examined by ultrasonic technique (C-scan type). The relationships between the nugget sizes and the weldability have been investigated. The result of ultrasonic technique shows the good agreement with that of the tensile test.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.68-73
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• 2010

Welding conditions in process of spot welding must become optimum and need to guarantee stability and reliability of vehicle body considering dynamic load history. Because welding parameters in process of spot welding are various, it is difficult that the quality of spot weldment was included in the optimum levels. In this paper, we found the optimum welding conditions satisfying KS spot welding qualities using genetic algorithm and spot welding experiments of high tensile strength steel and galvanized steel. Those experiments were dissimilar weld and 2-lap spot welding. Genetic algorithm created random welding condition after that, selected optimum individuals by probability concept.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.97-103
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• 1999

The dynamic resistance monitoring in primary circuit is one of the important issues. Because in-process and real time quality assurance of resistance spot weld is needed to increase the product reliability. In this study, new dynamic resistance detecting method is proposed as a practical manner of weld quality assurance using instantaneous current and voltage measured at the primary circuit. and also, various patterns of primary dynamic resistance curve are characterized with the macro photograph and the weldability lobe curve. It is found that the primary dynamic resistance patterns are basically similar to those of the secondary, but there is evident advantage such as no extra devices are needed to obtain the quality information and eventually real time feedback control will be possible.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.393-406
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• 1993

In resistance spot welding process, size of molten nuggest have been utilized to assess the integrity of the weld quality. However real-time monitoring of the nugget size is an extremely difficult problem. This paper describes the design of an artificial neural networks(ANN) estimator to predict the nugget size for on-line use of weld quality monitoring. The main task of the ANN estimator is to realize the mapping characteristics from the sampled dynamic resistance signal to the actual negget size through training. The structure of the ANN estimator including the number of hidden layers and nodes in a layer is determined by an estimation error analysis. A series of welding experiments are performed to assess the performance of the ANN estimator. The results are quite promissing in that real-time estimation of the invisible nugget size can be achieved by analyzing the dynamic resistance signal without any conventional destructive testing of welds.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.127-140
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• 1994

Resistance spot welding has been widely used in the sheet metal joining processes because of its high productivity and convenience. In the resistance spot welding processes the size of molten nugget is a criterion to assess weld quality. Many research have founded on measuring weld nugget size at the same time monitoring welding process parameters such as dynamic resistance and electrode movement. With increasing demand of energy saving, many efforts were made to employ aluminum alloys that are lighter than steel and have relatively equivalent strength to steel in the automobile industry. In this paper, spot weldability of aluminum alloys for various welding conditions were examined by series of experiments. One of the 6000 series (Mg-Si) aluminum alloy, 6383-T4 was chosen, which is currently considered as a substitute for the galvanized steel. Dynamic resistance, electrode movement and corresponding nugget size were observed and compared to the case of steel. Finally, resistance spot welding of dissimilar material (galvanized steel-aluminum alloy) was attempted.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.24 no.10 s.181
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• pp.2581-2588
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• 2000

In previous studies, the dynamic resistance, which was calculated by the process variables measured at the electrode of the welding machine, and the electrode displacement were used for quality exa mination. However, in-process usage of such systems is not effective in systems that include a welding gun attached to a robot. In order to overcome such problems, we obtained and used the process variables from the welding machine timer. This would allow us to estimate real time in -process weld quality. For quality estimation, the features were extracted as factors from the primary dynamic resistance patterns, which were measured in t he welding machine timer. The relationship between the indexes and nugget size of the welds was observed through the regression analysis. Using the analyzed factors, a regression model that could estimate nugget diameter was developed. Two regression equations of the model were suggested depending on the factors, and it was showed that the model developed by stepwise method was effective one for weld quality estimation. The developed estimation model was in good linearity with the nugget diameter obtained through the experimentation.