Effect of Electrode Force on Expulsion in Resistance Spot Welding with Initial Gap

Abstract

Compared with the conventional low carbon steels, the expulsion is more prone to occur in resistance spot welding (RSW) of dual phase (DP) steels. Especially when the initial gap exists between the steel sheets, the weld expulsion would reduce the weld quality of the joint. It is important to decrease or inhibit the occurrence of the weld expulsion in auto-body assembly line in order to guarantee the joint quality. In this study, the experiments of RSW with different initial gaps have been done to study the effect of the electrode force on the expulsion using different thicknesses of dual phase steels. The results show that the increment of the electrode fore would enable to decrease the occurrence of expulsion with the increase of the sheet thickness and gap spacing in resistance spot welding of DP steel sheets.