Resistance Spot Welds of 304I Austenitic Stainless Steel, Part 1:Fundamental, Simulation, Weld Growth, Tensile Strength And Failure Mode Analysis

Abstract

Austenitic stainless steel(ASS) is very common material that used in many industries today. Suitable joining method should be of low cost; reliable and long life. In such situation, the industries may prefer to use the resistance spot welding (RSW) for such ASS sheet. The weld quality of RSW joint is usually considered by nugget size which relies on the welding parameters. This paper analyzes the weld nuggets' characteristic of 304L austenitic stainless steel with relevant to its basic welding parameters (current, weld time and force). The entire experiment is carried out by varying the welding current and welding time at first attempt and the welding current and electrode force at second attempt. The increment of current and weld time has resulted proportional increment of nugget diameters; whereas the force increment has resulted reduction of nugget diameters. These results have been relatively compared with simulation results for the proper weld region identification. Eventually the welded joints were characterised by tensile shear test, macro graph and elongation measurement to relate the changes that happened due to the variations of welding parameters.