Study on microstructure and mechanical properties of RSW joints of 7075T-6 containing Sc

Abstract

Currently, resistance spot welding (RSW) is a common welding method used in automobile and other industries, and 7000 series aluminum (Al) alloys have become a very common industrial material because of their high strength and easy machinability. Scandium (Sc) is often used for alloy strengthening; however, there are few studies on the RSW joints of aluminum alloys containing scandium. Here, 7075-T6 alloys containing a small amount of scandium were obtained to investigate the joint of resistance spot weldability. The simulation shows that the effective contact area between the aluminum sheet surface is about 19.5%, which is an important factor in nucleation. It was found that the average grain size of the nugget decreased from 51.51 ± 5.74 to 8.15 ± 1.09 μm when scandium was added from 0 to 0.4 wt%, which is mainly due to Al3Sc particles acting as a heterogeneous nucleus in the melt. The test results show that the tensile shear strength of welded joints with 0.4 wt% scandium addition is 29.2% higher than that of the joints without scandium because of grain refinement strengthening.