Abstract

A technology for simulating resistance spot welding process has been developed that is capable of predicting nugget diameter in automotive steel sheet weldments to determine the specifications of those weldments at an early stage and speed up setting welding conditions. An incrementally coupled analysis was performed for electrical, thermal and mechanical fields using a finite element code. The material properties relevant to this analysis were selected with reference to the phenomena occurring throughout the resistance spot welding process, and they can be predicted by using the chemical compositions and mechanical characteristics. Also, software was developed to aid entry of arbitrary steel sheet combination and welding condition. Verification tests of simulations indicated that nugget diameter was predicted with an accuracy of ±5%. We expect that this simulation method will allow us to determine the specifications for automotive welded sheet combination at an earlier stage and reduce the time for setting welding conditions by approximately 45%.

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Author (organization or company)

• Kazuyoshi DOIRA（Tochigi R&D Center）
• Hisayasu OOKA（Tochigi R&D Center）
• Yoshikazu UMENO（Tochigi R&D Center）
• Manabu FUKUMOTO（Sumitomo Metal Industries, Ltd.）
• Kazuo OKAMURA（Sumitomo Metal Industries, Ltd.）
• Hideki UEDA（Sumitomo Metal Industries, Ltd.）

Publication Information

Article of Honda R&D Technical Review Vol.18 No.1 (185 - 192)

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