• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.84-90
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• 1999

The shape of weld nuggest in arc spot welding of 304 stainless steel was found by searching thermal history of a weld joint through a three-dimensional finite element model. The problem consists of one in which the finite element mesh is growing continuously in time in order to accomodate metal transfer in arc spot welding using element rebirth technique. The analysis was performed on the basis of experimental results. The finite element program MARC, along with a few user subroutines, was employed to obtain the numerical results. Temperature-dependent thermal properties, stir effect in weld pool, effect of phase transformation, and the convective and radiative boundary conditions are included in the model. Numerically predicted shape of weld nuggest is compared with the experimentally observed shape.