Experimental and FE Modeling Investigation of Spot Welded Thin Steel Sheets

Abstract

The spot welded thin steel sheets specimens are experimentally and numerically examined in this paper. The two specimens are joined using Resistance Spot Welding (RSW) method. The spot-welded joints consist of three zones with different material properties. Change of material properties during the welding process is caused by mechanical and thermal loading. The mechanical properties of thin steel sheets are determined by several tension tests. The specimens are cut in three different directions regarding a rolling direction of the basic material plate. Shear resistance of the spot welded joints is experimentally examined on the universal testing machine by displacement-controlled tensile loading tests. The numerical analysis is performed by large-strain plasticity theory implemented into a Finite Element Method based software. Comparison of the Finite Element (FE) modeling and experimental results verifies the proposed stress integration algorithm and modeling technique as powerful tools for prediction of the spot-welded joint behavior.

Keywords

• finite element method
• large-strain plasticity
• resistance spot welding
• thin steel sheets
• welding parameters