• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.46 no.10
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• pp.672-682
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• 2008

The resistance spot welding of TRIP590 steels was investigated to enhance understanding of weld fracture during tensile-shear strength (TSS) test. The main failure modes for spot welds of TRIP590 steels were nugget pullout and interfacial fracture. The peak load to cause a weld interfacial failure was found to be related to fracture toughness of the weld and the weld diameter. Although interfacial fracture occurred in the samples, the load carrying capacity of the weld was high and not significantly affected by the fracture mode. Substantial part of the weld exhibits the characteristic dimple (or elongated dimple) fractures on interfacial fractured surface, in spite of the high hardness values associated with the martensite microstructures. The high load-bearing ability of the weld is directly associated with the area of ductile fracture occurred in weld. Therefore, the judgment of the quality of resistance spot welds in TRIP590 steels, the load carrying capacity of the weld should be considered as an important factor than fracture mode.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.49 no.12
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• pp.967-976
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• 2011

Conventional fracture tests of resistance spot welds have been performed without consideration of the paint baking process in the automobile manufacturing line. The aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of the paint baking process on load carrying capacity and fracture mode for resistance spot welded 590 dual phase (DP), 780DP, 980DP, 590 transformation in duced plasticity (TRIP), 780TRIP and 1180 complex phase (CP) steels. With paint baking after resistance spot welding, the l-shape tensile test (LTT) and nano-indentation test were conducted on the as-welded and paint baked samples. Paint baking increased the load-carrying capacity of the resistance spot welded samples and improved the fracture appearance from partial interfacial fracture (PIF) to button fracture (BF). Improvement in fracture appearance after LTT is observed on weldments of 780 MPa grade TRIP steels, especially in the low welding current range with paint baking conditions. The higher carbon contents (or carbon equivalent) are attributed to the low weldability of the resistance spot welding of high strength steels. Improvement of the fracture mode and load carrying ability has been achieved with ferrite hardening and carbide formation during the paint baking process. The average nano-indentation hardness profile for each weld zone shows hardening of the base metal and softening of the heat affected zone (HAZ) and the weld metal, which proves that microstructural changes occur during low temperature heat treatment.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2004.05a
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• pp.341-348
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• 2004

Recently deveoped HSS of POSCO and commerciallizing activities were introduced. 590DP, 590FB, 780TRIP. In this year, another three type of hot rolled AHSS will be developed and try to commerciallize with auto makers. 780FB, 780DP and 980CP. We have future plan to develope ultra high strength steels 980TR, 1170CP.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.64-72
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• 2011

Nondestructive instrumented indentation test is the method to evaluate the mechanical properties by analyzing load - displacement curve when forming indentation on the surface of the specimen within hundreds of micro-indentation depth. Resistance spot welded samples are known to difficult to measure the local mechanical properties due to the combination of microstructural changes with heat input. Particularly, more difficulties arise to evaluate local mechanical properties of resistance spot welds because of having narrow HAZ, as well as dramatic changed in microstructure and hardness properties across the welds. In this study, evaluation of the local mechanical properties of resistance spot welds was carried out using the characterization of Instrumented Indentation testing. Resistance spot welding were performed for 590MPa DP (Dual Phase) steels and 780MPa TRIP (Transformation Induced Plasticity) steels following ISO 18278-2 condition. Mechanical properties of base metal using tensile test and Instrumented Indentation test showed similar results. Also it is possible to measure local mechanical properties of the center of fusion zone, edge of fusion zone, HAZ and base metal regions by using instrumented indentation test. Therefore, measurement of local mechanical properties using instrumented indentation test is efficient, reliable and relatively simple technique to evaluate the tensile strength, yield strength and hardening exponent.