Abstract
The resistance spot welding is one of the most commonly used welding process for joining the sheet metal in automotive manufacturing process due to higher deposition rates and higher economy achieved. Control variables in the resistance spot welding for achieving high quality are welding current, welding force and welding time. Generally at the manufacturing scene, welding current Vs welding time lobe diagram is used to estimate weldability because controlling welding force is not practical due to economical reasons. However new automotive steel plates have been developed to make lightweight automobiles and to improve resistance against rusting. Also the weldability of these steel plates are worst than the existing steel plates because of changing bare metal and surface plating effect. In consequence of above mentioned reasons, it is necessary to use welding force to present the lobe diagram. In this study, we obtained the welding force Vs welding current lobe diagram for commonly used GA steel plate and found that the second order repression model of tensile shear strength was useful in reducing the number of experiments, and the indentation, and thickness change during welding were used as a response to estimate quantitatively expulsion.
