• 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.