Resistance Spot Weld assisted with Adhesive Bonding

Abstract

This paper presents an experimental investigation of the weld bonding of low carbon steel (JIS G3141) together with adhesive layers to increase the mechanical properties of weld bonding. Epoxy adhesive was used in this research applied on the sheet thickness of 1.2 mm. The weld-bonding was carried out by applying layer of adhesive followed by resistance spot welding on surface samples. The relative properties and characteristics of the resulting weld-bonded-adhesive joints are evaluated and compared with the conventional spot-welding through tensile-shear, peel, hardness tests and macro-etching observations. The strength of weld bond joints was calculated and compared with those in as-weld and adhesive-bond joints. Results showed that the strength of weld-bond adhesive is higher than as-weld specimen. The hardness distribution of weld bond adhesive joints was investigated, at three regions i.e. base metal (BM), the heat-affected zone (HAZ), and the fusion zone (FZ) using micro-hardness Vickers machine. It can conclude that the presence of adhesive does not affect the hardness of weld-bonded. From macro- etching observation, the layer adhesive influenced the weld bond via the size nugget of weld-bonded which is smaller than as-weld. The introduction of adhesive layer in spot welding improves the joint strength and quality of spot weld.