RESEARCH ARTICLE

Quality control based on electrode displacement and force in resistance spot welding

  • Chuntao JI ,
  • Lipeng DENG
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  • School of Material Science and Engineering, Nanchang Hangkong University, Nanchang 330034, China

Received date: 18 May 2010

Accepted date: 12 Jun 2010

Published date: 05 Dec 2010

Copyright

2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

Abstract

The behaviors of electrode displacement and force during spot welding under various conditions, such as different weld currents, electrode forces, and welding times, were studied. Tests were conducted on a 170€kVA MFDC spot welder. Data were collected via a multichannel high-speed data acquisition system and were analyzed with MATLAB. Behaviors of 5182 aluminum and mild steel in spot welding were compared. Results show that nugget expansion rate does not reach zero for aluminium as it does for mild steel as nugget grew to a certain size. A linear relationship is found between the nugget size and maximum expansion that facilitates online weld quality evaluation. An electrode force peak is observed and believed relevant to the sufficient nugget size.

Cite this article

Chuntao JI , Lipeng DENG . Quality control based on electrode displacement and force in resistance spot welding[J]. Frontiers of Mechanical Engineering, 2010 , 5(4) : 412 -417 . DOI: 10.1007/s11465-010-0114-x

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