• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.283-288
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• 2017

A spot welded joint is modeled using 3-D finite elements with embedded strong discontinuities. The spot weld is represented by a special cohesive law on the embedded discontinuity surface, instead of meshing its geometry. This strategy naturally eliminates the need of adaptive FEM meshes fitting the local geometry of the spot weld. Mesh independent solutions are guaranteed by explicitly modeling the detailed shape of the spot weld, which is in contrast with the exiting approach using point constraints for the spot weld.