Mechanical properties characterization of resistance spot welded DP1000 steel under uniaxial tensile tests

Abstract

Abstract Resistance spot welding (RSW) is widely used in the automotive industry as the main joining method. Generally, an automotive body contains around 2000 to 5000 spot welds. Therefore, it is of decisive importance to characterize the mechanical properties of these areas for the further optimization and improvement of an automotive body structure. The present paper aims to introduce a novel method to investigate the mechanical properties and microstructure of the resistance spot weldment of DP1000 sheet steel. In this method, the microstructure of RSW of two sheets was reproduced on one sheet and on a bigger area by changing of the welding parameters, e. g. welding current, welding time, electrode force and type. Then, tensile tests in combination with digital image correlation (DIC) measurement were performed on the notched tensile specimens to determine the mechanical properties of the weld metal. The notch must be made on the welded tensile specimen to force the fracture and elongation on the weld metal, enabling the characterization of its properties. Additionally, the parameters of a nonlinear isotropic material model can be obtained and verified by the simulation of the tensile specimens. The parameters obtained show that the strength of DP1000 steel and the velocity of dislocations for reaching the maximum value of strain hardening, are significantly increased after RSW. The effect of sample geometry and microstructural inhomogeneity of the welded joint on the constitutive property of the weld metal are presented and discussed.