A study on the weld nugget formation in resistance spot welding of aluminum alloy

알루미늄 합금의 저항 점 용접시 용접너깃의 형성에 대한 연구

In this study, the resistance spot welding process of an aluminum alloy was analyzed through the numerical simulation including the electric contact resistance and the heat generation in the electrode. The finite element model was used to solve the electro-thermal responses in weld cycles. The resistance of the contact area was represented as the contact element modeling, but the thermal resistance between the contact surfaces was neglected. Welding tests of Alclad 2024-T3 aluminum alloy were made not only to get the input data for the numerical simulation, but also to compare the numerical results. The contact resistance was determined initially by the contact resistance tests and assumed to decay exponentially up to the solidus temperature. The temperature distributions and dynamic resistance obtained numerically were in good agreement with the experimental results. Numerical results revealed that nugget growth depends mainly on the heat generated in the workpiece and its contact area. The heat generated in the electrode has, however, only a little effect on the nugget growth, and the heat generation in the electrode-workpiece interface is initially high but decrease repidly.