• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.379-383
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• 2001

Resistance spot welding has been widely used in the sheet metal joining processes because of low cost, high productivity and convenience. Recently, automobile and aerospace industries are trying to replace partly steel sheets with aluminum alloy sheets. But in the case of dissimilar materials, to apply resistance spot welding has been known to be very difficult owing to the effect of melting temperature. On this study, an effort was made to apply spot welding of dissimilar sheet metals, 2024 aluminum alloy and zinc coated steel sheet, evaluate the spot weld quality with tensile-shear strength test and nondestructive evaluation technique, C-scan image methodology. In this study results, as the current below 11 kA, melting of materials is not achieved well. Also as the current exceeds to 13.5 kA, the more spatters happen at welded zone and tensile-shear strength lowered. So, the feasibility of C-scan image technique proposed in the study is found to be suitable evaluation method for resistance spot weldability.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.74-80
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• 2010

For the purpose of applying a hot-dip Zn-6mass%Al-3mass%Mg alloy coated steel sheet (ZAM) to automotive body materials, a laboratory study of the general properties required for inner and outer panels of automotive bodies was performed. Even with only light coating weight, ZAM showed an excellent corrosion resistance in terms of both cosmetic and perforation corrosion compared to the currently used materials for automotive bodies, GI70 and GA45. In our study, it was confirmed that ZAM exhibits as good as or better properties than GI70 in terms of spot weldability and press formability. Furthermore, since the same corrosion resistance can be achieved with less coating weight by applying ZAM, laser weldability is better than GI and GA.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.101-107
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• 2003

Since stainless steel sheets have good mechanical properties, weldability, appearance and corrosion resistance, they are commonly used as one of the structural materials of the railroad cars or the commercial vehicles which are manufactured by the spat welding. Among the many kinds of spot welded lap joints, it can be found that multi-lap joints are employed in their body structure. But, fatigue strength of these joints is lower than that of base metal due to high stress concentration at the nugget edge of spot weld and is considerably influenced by welding conditions as well as the mechanical and geometrical factors. Thus, it is necessary to establish a reasonable and systematic design criterion for the long life design of the spot-welded body structures. In this paper, the stress distribution and deformation around the spot-welded multi-lap joints subjected to tensile shear load was numerically analyzed. Also, the $\Delta$P-Nf curve was obtained by fatigue tests. Using these results, $\Delta$P-Nf curves were rearranged in to the ${\Delta}{\sigma}$-Nf relation with the maximum stress at nugget edge of spot weld.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.52-58
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• 2000

Spot welding, namely a kind of electric resisting welding has been used widely in field of automobile and aircraft industries because of easiness to apply. Specimens used in this study was a mild steel of 1.2mm thickness and the electrode was a Cu-Cr alloy of 6mm diameter. The surface sheared of specimens after testing of tensile shear was observed by SEM(scanning electron microscope) after ultrasonic cleaning for 10min., and microstructures and grain size of all specimens were measured with using of O.M.(Optical microscope). By the means of measurement and observations of tensile shear load, fatigue strength and share surface, the weldability of spot welding was evaluated. When tensile shearing testing, fracture starting point in all specimens was took place at the bond between HAZ(Heat affected zone) and nugget. With increasing in number of layers, fatigue strength was decreased. With increasing in electric current, grain size in the HAZ became more fine.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.60-67
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• 2005

Compared with conventional welding, laser spot welding offers a unique combination of high speed, precision and low heat distortion. This combination of advantages is attractive for manufacturing industries including automotive and electronics companies. In this paper, a real time monitoring scheme fur a pulsed Nd:YAG laser spot welding was suggested. Acoustic emission (AE) signals were collected during welding and analyzed for given process conditions such as laser power and pulse duration. A back propagation artificial neural network, with AE frequency content inputs, was used to predict the weldability of stainless steel sheets.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.49-53
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• 2004

Thin spot welding is frequently used for industrial purpose, such as automobile and aerospace industries and household appliances due to its high performance. In these days, the systemization of welding process made it possible to produce more precise or smaller electric parts. And when it comes to welding of steel sheets, the size of nugget must be getting smaller. Therefore, welding conditions are limited to avoid defects, such as deformation, damage and weakening of joining area. In this research, thin spot welding establishes the welding conditions, and then the measurement of the nugget size by the nondestructive inspection has been conducted. As a result, the right estimation of the nugget size, the detection of corona bond near joining area, the selection of the optimum ultrasonic mode, and setup for ultrasonic inspection are studied. From the trustworthy solutions of the nugget size estimated by results of measurement, the optimum inspection conditions depending upon the width of welding parts are determined as well.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.74-79
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• 2005

Spot welding widely used in automotive and aerospace industries has made it possible to produce more precise and smaller electric part by robotization and systemization of welding process. The quality of welding depends upon the size of nugget between the overlapped steel plates. Recently, the thickness of the steel plates becomes much thinner and hence, it introduces the smaller size of nugget. Therefore, it is necessary to develop the criterion to evaluate the quality of weld in order to obtain the optimal welding conditions for the better performance. In this paper, a thin steel plates, 0.1mm through 0.3mm thickness, have been spot-welded at different welding conditions and the nugget sizes are examined by defocused scanning microscopy. The relationships between nugget sizes and weldability have been investigated experimentally. The result of ultrasonic technique shows the good agreement with that of the tensile test.

• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 1999.05a
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• pp.215-218
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• 1999

With increasing demand of energy saving, -many efforts were made to employ aluminium alloys in the automobile industry. Especially, resistance spot welding has been widely used in the steel metal joining process because of its high productively and convenience. In this paper, spot weldability of 7075-T6 aluminium thin sheets for various welding conditions were examined by series of experiments. The tensile shear strength and microstructure of welded specimens was observed, and The optimal welding conditions were found for each welding conditions.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.50-55
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• 2006

In an attempt to optimize friction spot joining process of Al alloys for automobiles, effects of joining parameters such as tool rotating speed, plunging depth, and joining time on the joints properties were investigated. A wide range of joining conditions could be applied to join Al alloys for automobile without defects in the weld zone except for certain welding conditions with a lower heat input. For sound joints without defects, tensile shear strength of joints was higher than acceptable criteria of tensile shear strength of resistance spot welded joints for aluminum.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.44-52
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• 1999

This study deals with spot weld ability of dissimilar aluminum alloy sheets in order to take advantage of its lightweight and strength. The paper also shows the relationship between weld elements(i.e. current, welding time and tip force) and weld quality on the resistance spot weld part of the same and dissimilar Al alloy. The conclusions are: (1) Because of excessive tip force, deep indentation remained at the Al 5182 side which is lower stiffness at the dissimilar Al alloy. (2) Weld quality (i.e. tensile shear strength) of dissimilar Al alloy is superior to that of the same Al 6061 alloy. (3) As long cycles, fatigue life of spot weld specimen on dissimilar Al alloy sheets was better than that of the same Al alloy.