• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 1998.11a
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• pp.560-567
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• 1998

The pitch of spot-weld is a important variable in a view of both production cost and strength of car-body. Various renditions for the selection of pitches have been researched and especially in this paper the buckling analysis is carried out for the 2-sheet pannel structures. The optimal pitch is obtained by optimization program and FEM, which can enhance the buckling strength.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.98-105
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• 2001

The fundamental and widely used spot welded sections of automobiles (hat and double hat-shaped section members) absorb most of the energy in a front-end collision. The sections were tested on axial static(10mm/min) and quasi-static(1000mm/min) loads. Based on these test results, specimens with various thickness, shape and spot weld pitch on the flange have been tested with impact velocity(7.19m/sec) the same as a real life car clash. Characteristics of collapse have been reviewed and a structure of optimal energy absorbing capacity is suggested.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.179-185
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• 2008

The purpose of this paper is to propose a systematic method on the weld pitch design of a vehicle sub-frame considering the fatigue life of spot welding points. The input data, which perform the fatigue analysis on the spot welding nuggets, are obtained by both the dynamic analysis of the multi-body vehicle model passing through the virtual proving ground of a typical Belgian road and the quasi-static analysis with the finite element model of the vehicle sub-frame. By utilizing the life cycle data obtained from the fatigue analysis, the welding points to perform the pitch change are determined. The sensitivity analysis on the fatigue life of the welding points is carried out by using the three-level orthogonal array design, and through the results of the sensitivity analysis, the best combination on the welding pitch is determined. This study shows that as compared with the baseline design, the sub-frame redesigned by the proposed technique improves the fatigue life about 7 percent while reducing the number of welding points about 19 percent.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.78-78
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• 2002

Front-side members are structures with the greatest energy absorbing capability in a front-end collision of vehicles. This paper was performed to analyze initial collapse characteristics of spot welded hat and double hat-shaped section members, which are basic shape of side members, on the shift of flange weld pitches. The impact collapse tests were carried out by using home-made vertical air compression impact testing machine, and impact velocity of hat-shaped section members is 4.17m/sec and that of double hat-shaped section members is 6.54m/sec. In impact collapse tests, the collapsed length of hat-shaped section members was about 45mm and that of double hat-shaped section members was about 50mm. In consideration of these condition, axial static collapse tests(0.00017m/sec) of hat and double hat-shaped section members were carried out by using UTM which was limited displacement, about 50mm. As the experimental results, to obtain the best initial collapse characteristics, it is important that stiffness of vehicle members increases as section shapes change and the progressively folding mode induces by flange welding pitch.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.802-808
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• 2002

Front-side members are structures with the greatest energy absorbing capability in a front-end collision of vehicles. This paper was performed to analyze initial collapse characteristics of spot welded hat and double hat-shaped section members, which are basic shape of side members, on the shift of flange weld pitches. The impact collapse tests were carried out by using home-made vertical air compression impact testing machine, and impact velocity of hat-shaped section members is 4.17m/sec and that of double hat-shaped section members is 6.54m/sec. In impact collapse tests, the collapsed length of hat-shaped section members was about 45mm and that of double hat-shaped section members was about 50mm. In consideration of these condition, axial static collapse tests(0.00017m/sec) of hat and double hat-shaped section members were carried out by using UTM which was limited displacement, about 50mm. As the experimental results, to obtain the best initial collapse characteristics, it is important that stiffness of vehicle members increases as section shapes change and the progressively folding mode induces by flange welding pitch.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.143-153
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• 1997

In this study, bending test was performed on the real-scale, built-up beam test model fabricated by the $CO_2$ arc spot welding to evaluate the applicability of the welding method to the production of the stiffened plate in car-carrying ship. The built-up beam models which were fixed at both ends in longitudinal direction or simply supported to the rigid foundation, depending on the restraint condition of the corresponding car decks considered, were subjected to simulated design vehicle loads or concentrated point loads. During the test, the central deflection and the longitudinal bending stresses were measured from several points on the longitudinal flange face to predict the section properties of the built-up beams. The longitudinal bending stress on each spot weld were also measured to calculate the average horizontal shear force subjected to spot welds. Test results revealed that the shear strength of spot welds with their current weld nugget size and welding pitch was adequate enough to withstand the horizontal shear forces under the design vehicle loads. Although the built-up beam fabricated by the arc spot welding was a discontinuous beam, its mechanical behavior was well explained by the continuous beam theory using the effective breadth of plate. Based on test results, the criterion for the size of spot weld of which the average shear stress might meet the allowable stress requirement of AWS Code could be established.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.25 no.7
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• pp.1131-1138
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• 2001

This paper concerns the crashworthiness of the widely used vehicle structure, the spot welded hat and double hat shaped section members, which are excellent on the point of the energy absorbing capacity and low production cost. The target of this paper is to analyze the energy absorption capacity of the structure against the front-end collision, and to obtain useful information for designing stage. Changing the spot weld pitches on the flanges, the hat and double hat shaped section members were tested on the axial collapse loads in impact velocities of 4.72m/sec, 6.54m/sec, 7.19m/sec and 7.27m/sec. To efficiently review the collapse characteristics of these sections, the simulation have been carried out using explicit FEM package, LS-DYNA3D. The solutions are compared with results from the impact collapse experiments.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.28 no.7
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• pp.646-652
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• 2009

In this paper, welding pitch optimization technique of vehicle subframe is presented considering the fatigue life of spot welding nuggets. Fatigue life of spot welding nuggets is estimated by using the frequency-domain fatigue analysis technique. The input data, which are used in the fatigue analysis, are obtained by performing the dynamic analysis of vehicle model passing through the Belgian road profile and also the modal frequency response analysis of finite element model of vehicle subframe. According to the fatigue life result obtained from the frequency-domain fatigue analysis, the design points to optimize the weld pitch distance are determined. For obtaining the welding pitch combination to maximize the fatigue life of the spot welding nuggets, 4-factor, 3-level orthogonal array experimental design is used. This study shows that the optimized subframe improves the fatigue life of welding nugget with minimum fatigue life about 65.8 % as compared with the baseline design.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.76-81
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• 2003

The purpose of this study is to analyze the collapse characteristics of widely used spot welded section members coated damping material Y1000 and to develop an analysis method for acquiring exact collapse loads and energy absorption ratio. Hat-shaped thin-walled members have the biggest energy absorbing capacity in a front-end collision. The sections were tested on quasi-static and impact loads. Specimens with two type thickness, width ratio and spot weld pitch on the flange have been tested in impact velocities(6.73n0sec and 7.54n1sec) which imitate a real-life car collision. As a result, it was developed the system for acquiring impact energy absorbing characteristics of structure united thin-walled member and damping materials.