Investigation of mechanical properties of laser welded dual-phase steels at macro and micro levels

Abstract

The current automotive industry uses new technology in materials processing and lightweight materials to minimize vehicle weight and fuel consumption. As a result, Tailor-Welded Blanks (TWB) are used in regions where additional strength or stiffness is necessary in body-in-white, thus decreasing weight. In this paper, TWB were produced by joining DP600 with 1.8 mm and DP800 with 0.8 mm and 1.5 mm using CO2 laser welding. The effects of laser power and welding speed on the mechanical properties of TWB were investigated. The flow behaviors of the TWB were obtained from tensile tests. The microstructures of the weld zones of the base materials and TWB were revealed, and the numerical analyzes of the microstructures were performed by micromechanical modeling with a 2D representative volume element (RVE). Effective stress and plastic strain distributions in the microstructures and macroscopic flow curves of the base materials and the weld zones were obtained. The uniaxial tensile tests of the samples were modeled, and the flow behaviors of the TWB were obtained with micromechanical modeling. The results showed a significant change in stress distribution and strain localization depending on the grain size of constituents and the thickness ratios of the TWB at micro and macro scales, respectively. The numerical flow curves obtained using the RVE method were in good agreement with those of the experimental.