• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.174-183
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• 2006

The resistance spot-welded region in most current finite element crash models is characterized as a rigid beam at the location of the welded spot. The region is modeled to fail with a failure criterion which is a function of the axial and shear load at the rigid beam. The role of this rigid beam is simply to transfer the load across the welded components. The calculation of the load acting on the rigid beam is important to evaluate the failure of the spot-weld. In this paper, numerical simulation is carried out to evaluate the calculation of the load at the rigid beam. The load calculated from the precise finite element model of the spot-welded region considering the residual stress due to the thermal history during the spot welding procedure is regarded as the reference value and the value of the load is compared with the one obtained from the spot-welded model using the rigid beam with respect to the element size, the element shape and the number of imposed constraints. Analysis results demonstrate that the load acting on the spot-welded element is correctly calculated by the change of the element shape around the welded region and the location of welded constrains. The results provide a guideline for an accurate finite element modeling of the spot-welded region in the crash analysis of vehicles.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.6 no.5
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• pp.20-27
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• 1998

According as the member of the automobile body structure have been thinned their thickness and have become high strength, each part of the body structure has been put more severe stress condition. And, because fatigue strength of the spot welded lap joint is influenced by its geometrical and mechanical factors, welding condition and etc., there needs a quantitative and systematic evaluation method for them. In this study, by considering nugget edge of the spot weld part of the IB-type spot welded lap joint under tension-shear load to the ligament crack. fatigue strength of various IB-type spot welded lap joints was estimated with the stress intensity factor(S.I.F.) KIII which is fracture mechanical parameter. We could find that fatigue strength evaluation of the IB-type spot welded lap joints by KIII is more effective than the maximum principal stress ($\sigma$1max) at edge of the spot weld obtained from FEM analysis.

• Journal of the korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.42-50
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• 1991

According as the members and inner and outer plates of the automobile body structure have been thinned their thickness and have become high strength, each part of the body structure has been put more severe stress condition. Therefore, it has been increasingly required to improve the fatigue strength of the spot welded structures. As one of the improving methods for such problem, the author had previously proposed the method of alleviating stress concentration at nugget edge of the spot weld part and improving its fatigue strength [1]. But, because fatigue strength of the spot welded lap joint is influenced by its geometrical and mechanical factors, welding condition and etc., there needs a quantitative and systematic estimation method of them. In this report, by considering nugget edge of the spot weld part of the spot welded lap joint subjected to tensile load to the ligament crack, fatigue strength of various spot welded lap joints was estimated with the stress intensity factor (S.I.F.) K which is fracture mechanical parameter. It is known that evaluation of fatigue strength of the spot welded lap joint by the stress intensity factor (S.I.F.) K is more effective than the maximum stress $(\sigma_{ymax}$) at edge of the spot weld part on the center line of width of the plate.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Technology Engineers
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.290-296
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• 2012

Cold-rolled carbon steel sheets are commonly used in railroad car or commercial vehicles such as the automobile. These are mainly fabricated by spot welding which is a kind of electric resistance welding. But fatigue strength of spot welding joint is lower than that of base metal due to high stress concentration at nugget edge of the spot welded part. And fatigue strength of them is especially influenced by not only geometrical and mechanical factors but also welding conditions of the spot welded joint. So for fatigue design of gas welded joints such as TS-type joints, it is necessary to obtain design information on stress distribution at the weldment as well as fatigue strength of spot welded joints. And also, the influence of the geometrical parameters of spot welded joints on stress distribution and fatigue strength must be evaluated. And analysis approach for fatigue test using design of experiment are evaluated optimum factor in TS-type welded joint and geometrical parameters of materials. Using these results, that factors applied to fundamental information for automation of fatigue design.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.1115-1120
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• 2003

The recent tendency in the automobile industries is toward light weighting vehicle body to improve the problems by environmental pollution as well as improving fuel cost. The effective way to reduce the weight of vehicle body seems to be application of new materials for body structure and such trend is remarkable. Among the various materials for vehicle body, stainless steel sheet (for example, 301L and 304L), TRIP steel and cold rolled steel sheets are under the interests. However, in order to guarantee reliability of new material and to establish the long life design criteria of body structure, it is important and require condition to assess spot weldability of them and fatigue strength of spot welded lap joints which were fabricated under optimized spot welding condition. And, recently, a new issue in the design of the spot welded structure is to predict economically fatigue design criterion without additional fatigue tests. In general, for fatigue design of the spot-welded thin sheet structure, additional fatigue tests according to the welding condition, material, joint type, and fatigue loading condition are generally required. This indicates that much cost and time for it should be consumed. Therefore, in this paper, the maximum stresses at nugget edge of spot weld were calculated through nonlinear finite element analysis first. And next, obtained the ${\Delta}P-N_{f}$ relation through the actual fatigue tests on spot welded lap joints of similar and dissimilar high strength steel sheets. And then, the ${\Delta}P-N_{f}$ relation was rearranged in the ${\Delta}{\sigma}-N_{f}$ relation. From this ${\Delta}{\sigma}-N_{f}$ relation, developed the fatigue design technology for spot welded lap joints of them welded using the optimized welding conditions.

• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.121-126
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• 2002

The railroad cars or the commercial vehicles are generally manufactured by the spot welding. Among various kinds of spot welded lap joints, multi-lap joints are one of popular joints in manufacturing their body structures. But, fatigue strength of these joints are lower than that of base metal due to high stress concentration at the nugget edge of the spot weld and are known to considerably be influenced by welding conditions as well as the mechanical and geometrical factors. Thus, it is necessary to establish a reasonable and systematic fatigue design criterion for spot welded multi-lap joints. In this paper, the $\Delta$P-N$_{f}$ curves has been rearranged in the $\Delta$$\sigma$-N$_{f}$ relation with the maximum stress at the nugget edge of spot welded multi-lap joints subjected to tensile shear load. Consequently, the fatigue data were evaluated in terms of fracture mechanics by plotting on the $\Delta$OP-N$_{f}$ curves. From the results obtained, both of them have been revealed to be applicable to fatigue design of spot welded multi-lap joints. However, the fracture mechanical approach is found to be more effective than the maximum stress approach in the range on N$_{f}$$\geq$2x10$^{5}$ . .

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.387-392
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• 2003

The mechanical behavior of two rectangular spot-welded plates under bending is investigated in detail. The equivalent thickness of spot-welded plates is introduced in this study and used in explaining the results. The focus of the analysis is to evaluate the effect of spot-welding from the view point of equivalent thickness. The investigation of deflection has been performed as comparing the result from finite element analysis with the measured data of the spot-welded plates for various parameters, such as aspect ratio, area ratio, and distance ratio of spot-welding points. The effect of spot-welding is as large as 62%(at r=1.0) when the area ratio of spot-welding point is just 4.52%.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.24 no.1 s.173
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• pp.38-51
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• 2000

The study on the mechanical behavior of a spot-welded specimen is largely divided into the quasi-static overload failure analysis and the fatigue failure prediction. The main issue in an overload analysis is to examine the critical loads, thereby providing a generalized overload failure criterion. As the welding spot forms a singular geometry of an external crack type, fatigue failure of spot-welded specimens can be evaluated by means of a fracture parameter. In this study, we first present the limit loads of 4 representative types of single spot-welded specimens in terms of the base metal yield strength and specimen geometries. Recasting the load vs. fatigue life relationships experimentally, obtained here, we then predict the fatigue life of spot-weld specimens with a single parameter denoted the equivalent stress intensity factor. This crack driving parameter is demonstrated to successfully describe the effects of specimen geometry and loading type in a comprehensive manner. The suggested fatigue life formula for a single spot weld can play a key, role in the design and assessment of spot-welded panel structures, in that the fatigue strength of multi-spots is eventually determined by the fatigue strength of each single spot.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.554-561
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• 1998

Vehicle body structures are formed by thousands of spot welds and fatigue failure of vehicle structures occur near the spot welds after driving a long way at a durability test road. It is necessary to know accurately the reason of the fatigue failure of the spot weld in the developing stage in order to reinforce it. Many investigations have been done regarding the strength of spot welded joints, contributing to understand its fatigue strength. In developing process, a fatigue failed spot welded area can be repaired by $CO_2$ welding or another method to continue the test. To know the effect of reinforcing these welds, several methods of welding were analyzed and compared to spot welding. With the results of this test, the appropriate repair method can be used instead of spot welding during the development of new car and best design guide can be given for the strength. In this study, fatigue and static tensile tests are made and microstructure is investigated for the purpose of estimating the strength of welded joints by using spot welded and $CO_2$ plug welded specimens. The tested specimens are of two types : Tensile-shear type(TS) and L-tension type(LT).

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.28 no.12
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• pp.1864-1870
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• 2004

A spot welded structures have an influence on a diverse climatic situation, for instance temperature, humidity and precipitation. In addition factors of environmental pollution such as acid rain, that courses corrosion, have the tendency to increase. But spot welded structures strength is affected by humidity and environment temperature. Therefore, it is important to evaluate effect of temperature and water immersion on strength properties of spot welded part. In this study, the strength distribution of spot welded plates is evaluated the environmental temperature of zinc coated steel plates. Test is conducted with welded part immersed in distilled and synthetic sea water. Specimens are immersed into water for 10, 100, 500 and 1000 hours to evaluate the offsets of water immersion time on tensile-shear strength under the conditions of -40, 0, 20 and 5$0^{\circ}C$. From this result, spot welded specimens with 5 mm clearance have lower tensile-shear strength in the distilled water or synthetic sea water than without clearance. And they have lower tensile-shear strength under -4$0^{\circ}C$ and over 5$0^{\circ}C$.