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Resistance rivet welding (RRW) process was applied to join three-sheet of Al/steel/steel. The formation mechanism, microstructure and mechanical performance of three-sheet dissimilar materials joints were studied in detail. The Al/steel/steel mixed nugget is produced by the fusion of Al/steel mixed and steel/steel nuggets. The microstructure of Al/steel/steel mixed nugget varies from mixed martensite and ferrite to full martensite as the increasing heat input. The ferrite contains numerous B2 structure nano-precipitates. The introduced Al element by the rivet cavity plays a significant influence on the microstructure, and the competition between ferrite and austenite stabilized elements in mixed nugget is responsible for the microstructure evolution. The phases performance of ferrite and martensite is determined. The average nano-hardness of ferrite is 2.66 GPa (271.3 HV), while that of martensite is 4.68 GPa (477.4 HV), and the yield strength for ferrite and martensite is calculated to be 475.0 MPa and 771.1 MPa, respectively. The average microhardness of the mixed nugget is 369.1 HV, 454.1 HV and 481.7 HV for welding parameters 7 kA-200 m s, 8 kA-200 m s and 9 kA-200 m s, presenting a trend of increasing with the heat input. Considering the multilayer joining containing both the Al/steel heterogeneous and steel/steel homogeneous interfaces, the comprehensive tensile-shear performance is optimal at welding parameters 8 kA-200 m s, 5334 N for Al/steel interface and 19,531 N for steel/steel interface.

The aging characteristics of Al/UHSS resistance rivet welding (RRW) joints are investigated for the first time in this paper. Microstructure studies have shown that the aging treatment does not change the phase composition of the Al/steel mixed nugget still remaining the ferrite structure, while the precipitation, growth and dissolution occur for the microstructure of Al alloy varying with the distance from the rivet. Mechanical tests revealed that for interfacial fracture (IF) and button pullout fracture (BPF) joints, the maximum peak load increased by 13% and 26% with the prolonged aging time, respectively. The improvement in the joint strength after aging can be attributed to the relaxation of the residual stress for IF joint and the age hardening of Al sheet for BPF joint. In addition, interestingly, the accelerated artificial aging is discovered firstly in Al/steel RRW joint. The phenomenon can be attributed to the higher solid solubility of Mg and Si in softening zone of Al sheet, resulting in faster and more precipitation during the aging treatment. The precipitation kinetics indicated that the average Avrami exponent was 1.25, proving the one-dimensional linear growth of fresh nuclei of the hardening phase β''. The block shear model analysis suggested that the Canadian Standards Association, giving the calculating/test values ratio ranged from 0.88 to 1.08, could provide a more reasonable calculation, which showed that the shear failure was mainly determined by the yield of the gross shear plane, and the tension plane failed because of tensile rupture during the lap-shear test.

Ultrasonic welding (USW) of thermoplastics plays a significant role in the automobile industry. In this study, the effect of the welding time on the joint strength of ultrasonically welded acrylonitrile–butadiene–styrene (ABS) and the weld formation mechanism were investigated. The results showed that the peak load firstly increased to a maximum value of 3.4 kN and then dropped with further extension of the welding time, whereas the weld area increased continuously until reaching a plateau. The optimal welding variables for the USW of ABS were a welding time of 1.3 s with a welding pressure of 0.13 MPa. Interfacial failure and workpiece breakage were the main failure modes of the joints. The application of real-time horn displacement into a finite element model could improve the simulation accuracy of weld formation. The simulated results were close to the experimental results, and the welding process of the USW of ABS made with a 1.7 s welding time can be divided into five phases based on the amplitude and horn displacement change: weld initiation (Phase I), horn retraction (Phase II), melt-and-flow equilibrium (Phase III), horn indentation and squeeze out (Phase IV) and weld solidification (Phase V). Obvious pores emerged during Phase IV, owing to the thermal decomposition of the ABS. This study yielded a fundamental understanding of the USW of ABS and provides a theoretical basis and technological support for further application and promotion of other ultrasonically welded thermoplastic composites.

The mixed use of aluminum (Al) alloy and high strength steel (HSS) is an effective way to reduce the weight of vehicles, which meanwhile brings great challenges to the traditional spot joining technologies. Three-stage friction stir riveting (FSR) process using a precisely designed semi-hollow rivet was developed for Al-steel joining. By coordination control the rotation and feed movement of the rivet, a “tube-sheet” annular solid-phase welding zone is formed between the semi-hollow rivet and the lower steel sheet, realizing the reliable joining of Al-steel dissimilar sheets combination. The rivet structure was designed to accommodate the trapped Al alloy in the rivet cavity during the friction welding stage, obtaining an inclusion-free friction welding interface which was not only mechanically mixed but also fully interatomic binding. The optimal FSR joint is composed of ferrite softening zone (FSZ), carbide precipitation zone (CPZ), ultrafine martensite zone (UMZ), and fine dual-phase zone (FDPZ). Moreover, due to the circumferential flow of materials during friction welding stage, the dynamic recrystallization (DRX) microstructures of the rivet and steel sheet both have shear texture consistent with {112} and {110} cube texture, which brings the uniformity of microstructure and performance. With the combined contribution of inclusion-free joining interface and the microstructure with uniform cube texture, the optimal FSR joints have the maximum average tensile-sheer strength of 281.1 MPa (90.7%·σ6061-T6) and peak load of 5.29 kN, presenting pull-out fracture mode with good fracture energy absorption.

Friction stir welding (FSW) is a new solid-state joining process for joining light metals, such as magnesium (Mg) alloys. However, the texture-induced softening mechanism (in stir zone, SZ) tends to cause the worsening of mechanical properties in FSW Mg alloys. In this work, multi-pass hot-rolling and subsequent annealing is used to ameliorate the FSW AZ31 alloy plate. The results show that multi-pass hot-rolling leads to the c-axes of most grains in the SZ approximately perpendicular to the normal direction (ND) transforming into these almost parallel to the ND, accompanied with multiple twin types. After subsequent annealing, twins, as nucleation sites, promote the formation of new grains with off-basal texture, resulting in the weak basal texture. Compared with the FSW plate and the initial plate, the rolled-annealed FSW plate exhibits a relatively uniform hardness distribution and a “strength-ductility” synergy, which are mainly attributed to an appropriate texture feature and a homogeneous grain structure. This work provides a new idea for the development of new high-performance FSW Mg alloys.

Friction self-piercing riveting (F-SPR) process based on a pip die has been invented to solve the cracking problems in riveting high-strength and low-ductility light metals, such as magnesium alloys, cast aluminum, and 7 series aluminum alloys. In this paper, in order to solve quality issues caused by the misalignment between rivet and pip-die in F-SPR, a flat-die based F-SPR process was proposed and employed to join 1.27 mm-thick AA6061-T6 to 3 mm-thick AZ31B. The results indicate that a 1.0 mm die distance is effective to avoid rivet upset and insufficient flaring. As the feed rate increases, the heat input in the whole process decreases, resulting in a larger riveting force, which in turn increases both the bottom thickness and interlock amount. Besides, solid-state bonding, including Al-Mg intermetallic compounds (IMCs), Al-Mg mechanical mixture, and Al-Fe atom interdiffusion was observed at the joint interfaces. The upper Al layer was softened, but the lower Mg layer was hardened, and both sheets exhibited a narrowed affected region with the increase of feed rate, while the rivet hardness shows no obvious change. Three fracture modes appeared accompanying the variations in lap-shear strength and energy absorption as the feed rate increased from 2 mm/s to 8 mm/s. Finally, the F-SPR process using a flat die was compared to those using a pip die and a flat bottom die to show the advantage of flat die on coping with the misalignment problem.

A three-dimensional finite element thermal-mechanical coupling model was developed to simulate the friction spot joining with a flat shoulder tool for AA6061-T6 Al alloy and carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) at different welding conditions. When joining at 1500 rpm rotation speed and 0.1 mm/s plunge speed, the peak temperature at the Al alloy-CFRP interface reached up to 575 °C as the plunge depth was increased to 0.6 mm. The interfacial temperature was reduced as rotation speed or plunge depth was decreased. Good correspondences between predicted temperature field distribution and experimental bonded area have been achieved. Thermal history and temperature distribution at the top surface of Al alloy were well validated by experimental measurements. The temperature zone within 220–340 °C made the greatest contribution to improving joint integral resistance to tensile-shear testing, which was recommended to enlarge during the process for a given welding parameter. On the basis, the design of tool structure enabling to reduce peak temperature and enlarging melted area was proved numerically as a feasible way to enlarge processing windows to increase the overall strength of joint. The findings could hopefully help optimize friction spot welded joints of dissimilar metals and composites.

Zinc-coated ultra-high-strength steel (UHSS) sheets are highly susceptible to liquid metal embrittlement (LME) during resistance spot welding. However, systematic understanding on LME cracks in the pullout fracture of UHSS welds is still lacking. This study employs artificially created pre-cracks on bare DP980 steel welds to simulate the LME cracks, allowing accurate control of the crack shape and location. To investigate the fracture initiation and propagation behavior of welds with various pre-crack characteristics, a combined experimental and computational approach, which incorporated tensile tests on newly designed miniature specimens for detailed mechanical property measurement and fracture parameter calibration of different weld zones, was proposed. Results indicate that external pre-cracks in a highly strained region accelerated damage accumulation at the fracture onset region and deflected the fracture propagation path to pass through the pre-crack, causing a 12.1% loss of tensile-shear peak load. Conversely, internal pre-cracks vary the fracture initiation site and exhibit a more detrimental influence, with 24.1% loss of tensile-shear strength. The effects of the pre-crack length, orientation, and depth on the tensile-shear performance were quantified. Results show that the negative effect of the LME crack on the weld performance can be mitigated or avoided by controlling the crack location and geometry.

Safety evaluation of resistance spot welds necessitates the accurate measurement of local constitutive properties. This study employed miniature mechanical tests to investigate the deformation and failure behaviors of nugget, heat affected zone (HAZ), and corona bond of resistance spot welded JSC980YL steel. A novel mini-peel test was developed to enable local fracture in HAZ for numerical inverse calibration of constitutive parameters. The fracture constants of weld zones calibrated using Cockcroft-Latham ductile failure criterion were incorporated in finite element models to predict the failure modes of spot welds in tensile-shear and cross-tension coupon tests. The result indicates that the ultimate tensile strengths of the nugget and the corona bond were 37.6% higher and 5.8% lower, respectively, than that of the base material. The nugget and HAZ exhibited ductile fracture, whereas the corona bond was brittle fracture with only 1.2% elongation. In the coupon tests, the increase of nugget diameter slowed down the damage accumulation rate in the nugget and accelerated that in the HAZ, resulting in the transition of failure mode from interfacial to pullout. The failure load of corona bond in coupon tests increased with the increase of nugget diameter while its contribution to the peak load decreased.

A traditional resistance spot weld process in combination with Multi-Ring Domed welding electrodes was applied to join AA5754-O to low carbon steel. The coach peel performance of welds was compared between the as-welded (unbaked) and post-paint bake condition (baked). The unbaked joints exhibited button pullout fracture mode, whereas the baked joints were severely weakened and demonstrated an interfacial fracture mode which is attributed to the baking process inducing thermal stress at the dissimilar material interface which cracked the semi-continuous oxide film inclusions at the edge of the solidified aluminum nugget to form a more continuous defect layer across the diameter of the aluminum nugget. These defects act as low energy crack paths under applied loads and reduce joint strength by promoting undesirable interfacial fracture in baked welds.

Carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) is a prospective lightweight material in automobile industry. However, joining metal and CFRP is a great challenge. In the present study, an innovative process called coaxial one-side resistance spot welding (COS-RSW) is proposed to fabricate Al5052 (Al) and CFRP joints. Based upon our newly developed finite element code JWRIAN, the electric-thermal-mechanical coupled process of COS-RSW is modeled and validated with experiments. The influences of welding current, welding time and electrode force on CFRP molten zone are investigated in detail. The results show that the depth of molten zone has a strong correlation with both welding current and welding time. A relative low welding current or short welding time that results in the Al/CFRP interface temperature below the melting temperature of the resin matrix is insufficient to form a sound connection between the two sheets. While excessive current or too long welding time may lead to overheating of CFRP and decomposition of the resin matrix, which increases the risk of weak joining. Furthermore, it is found that the depth of molten zone increases even at the cooling stage, which indicates accurate simulation for both the heating and the cooling stages of the COS-RSW process is indispensable. Keywords: Coaxial one-side resistance spot welding, Carbon fiber reinforced plastic, Al5052, Dissimilar materials, Multiphysics coupling simulation

A new material model of magnesium alloys, combining both Hill’48 yield function and Cazacu’06 yield function, was developed and programmed into LS-DYNA using user subroutine, in which both slip dominant and twinning/untwinning dominant hardening phenomena were included. First, a cyclic load test was performed, and its finite element analysis was carried out to verify the new material model. Then, the deformation behaviors of the magnesium crash box subjected to the compressive impact loading were investigated using the developed material model. Compared with the experimental results, the new material model accurately predicted the deformation characteristics of magnesium alloy parts. Additionally, the effect of the thickness distribution, initial deflection and contact friction coefficient in simulation models on deformation behaviors were investigated using this validated material model.

Cast aluminum alloys are promising materials that can simplify the manufacturing process of automobile body structures. However, the low ductility of cast aluminum poses significant challenges to existing riveting technologies. In the present work, dissimilar AA6061-T6 aluminum alloy and Al-Si7Mg cast aluminum were joined by self-piercing riveting (SPR) and friction self-piercing riveting (F-SPR) processes to reveal the effect of friction heat on rivetability of low-ductility cast aluminum alloys. The joint macro-morphology, microstructure, peak tooling force, microhardness distribution, tensile-shear, and cross-tension performance of the two processes were comparatively studied. Results indicated that the in-situ softening effect of friction heat in the F-SPR process could effectively improve the ductility of cast aluminum, avoid cracking, and reduce the tooling force by 53%, compared to the SPR process. The severe plastic deformation and friction heat induced by rivet rotation results in refined equiaxed grains of aluminum near the rivets and solid-state bonding between aluminum sheets in the rivet cavity. The F-SPR joints are superior to SPR joints in both tensile-shear and cross-tension performance due to the avoidance of cracking, increase of mechanical interlocking, and solid-state bonding of interfaces. Significantly, when Al-Si7Mg is placed on the lower layer, the peak tensile-shear and cross-tension loads of the F-SPR joints are 7.2% and 45.5% higher than the corresponding SPR joints, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present research, a digital twin of coaxial one-side resistance spot welding (COS-RSW) was established for the real-time prediction of transient temperature field. A three-dimensional (3D) model of COS-RSW joint was developed based on the in-house finite element (FE) code JWRIAN-SPOT. The experimental verified FE model was employed to generate the big data of temperature of COS-RSW process. Multiple dimension interpolation was applied to process database and output prediction. The FE model can predict the thermal cycle on COS-RSW joints under different parameter couples. The interpolation effect of individual welding parameters was discussed, and a power weight judgement for welding time was essential to ensure accuracy. With the support of big data, the digital twin can provide visualization prediction of COS-RSW within 10 s, whereas numerical modeling needs at least 1 h. The proposed application of digital twin has potential to improve the efficiency of process optimization in engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coaxial one-side resistance spot welding (COS-RSW) is a newly developed process for joining metals and composites. In the present study, Al5052 and carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP) lap joints were fabricated via COS-RSW. The welding process was modeled numerically using an in-house finite element code called JWRIAN. Single-lap shear tests were performed to evaluate the joining strength. The molten zone diameter was defined and measured experimentally to verify the numerical model. An artificial neural network (ANN) was established based on multitask learning, and its training data set was prepared via finite element analysis (FEA). The well-trained ANN was employed to generate a process window for the COS-RSW. Results demonstrated that the FEA could accurately reproduce the COS-RSW process, which served as an efficient tool for generating a process data set without performing experiments. The ANN performed multitask learning well and predicted the welding output effectively. Furthermore, Tmavg, an index representing the average value of the maximum temperature in the molten interface of CFRP, was adopted to evaluate the contribution of the integral interface temperature field to the bonding strength qualitatively. An optimal Tmavg value, which was close to the CFRP decomposition temperature of 340 °C, was obtained, and it exhibited an excellent correlation with higher bonding strengths. The process window provided welding parameters directly to yield the desired results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Friction self-piercing riveting (F-SPR) process has shown advantages over fusion welding, solid state welding, and traditional mechanical joining processes in joining dissimilar materials. Because of the thermo-mechanical nature of F-SPR process, formation of the joint is determined by both riveting force and softening degree of materials to be joined. However, it is still not clear that how exactly the riveting force and generated frictional heat jointly influence mechanical interlocking formation and crack inhibition during F-SPR process. To address these issues, F-SPR process was applied to join 2.2 mm-thick aluminum alloy AA6061-T6 to 2.0 mm-thick magnesium alloy AZ31B. The correlation of riveting force, torque responses, and energy input with joint quality was investigated systematically under a wide range of process parameter combinations. It was found that a relatively greater final peak force and higher energy input were favorable to produce sound joints. Based on that, a two-stage F-SPR method was proposed to better control the energy input and riveting force for improved joint quality. The joints produced by the two-stage method exhibited significantly improved lap-shear strength, i.e., 70% higher than traditional self-piercing riveting (SPR) joints and 30% higher than previous one-stage F-SPR joints. This research provides a valuable reference for further understanding the F-SPR joint formation mechanism and conducting process optimization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aluminum alloys have been increasingly adopted in the fabrication of automotive body structures as an integral component of mass savings strategy. However, mixed use of dissimilar aluminum alloys, such as sheet metals, castings, and extrusions, poses significant challenges to the existing joining technologies, especially in regard to single-sided joint access. To address this issue, the current study applied the friction stir blind riveting (FSBR) process to join 1.2µmm-thick AA6022-T4 aluminum alloy to 3µmm-thick Aural-2 cast aluminum. A newly developed, robot mounted, servo-driven, FSBR equipment and the procedure using it to make FSBR joints were introduced systematically. The effect of rivet feed rate and spindle speed on joint formation and cross section geometry was investigated, and it was found that a high spindle speed and a low rivet feed rate, i.e., high heat input, are prone to produce good joints, and that low heat input can cause severe problems related to insufficient softening of the sheets. The rivet deformation, especially the notch location on the mandrel relative to the shank has significant influence on lap-shear strength and fracture mode of the final joints. A rivet pull-out fracture mode was observed at higher rivet feed rates and lower spindle speeds and exhibited significantly improved energy absorption capability, i.e., 62% higher compared to traditional blind riveted (BR) joints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, higher requirements on vehicle performance and emission have been posing great challenges to lightweighting of vehicle bodies. Mixed use of lightweight materials, e.g., aluminum alloys and magnesium alloys, is one of the essential methods for weight reduction. However, the joining of dissimilar materials brings about new challenges. Self-piercing riveting (SPR) is a feasible process to mechanically join dissimilar materials, however, when magnesium alloy sheet is put on the bottom layer, cracks occur inevitably due to the low ductility of the magnesium alloy. Friction self-piercing riveting (F-SPR) process is a newly proposed technology, which combines the SPR with friction stir spot welding (FSSW) and has been validated being capable of eliminating cracks and improving joint performance. However, in the F-SPR process, the generation of the transient friction heat and its effect on interaction between the rivet and the two sheets are still unclear. In this paper, a three-dimensional thermomechanical-coupled finite-element (FE) model of F-SPR process was developed using an ls-dyna code. Temperature-dependent material parameters were utilized to calculate the material yield and flow in the joint formation. Preset crack failure method was used to model the material failure of the top sheet. The calculated joint geometry exhibited a good agreement with the experimental measurement. Based on the validated model, the transient formation of F-SPR mechanical joint, stress distribution, and temperature evolution were further investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional magnesium alloys, due to their low ductility, have a poor self-piercing rivetability. Cracks always occur when the magnesium sheet is placed at the bottom layer, which brings great challenge to the use of the magnesium alloys. In this paper, friction self-piercing riveting (F-SPR) process was adopted to join 1 mm thick aluminum alloy AA6061-T6 to 2.2 mm thick magnesium alloy AZ31B, and the effect o f rivet hardness and key geometrical features on joint formation were studied systematically. The experimental results showed that using rivets with a hardness of 190 HV, the top aluminum sheet could be well pierced and a larger rivet shank flaring value would be formed between rivet shank and the bottom magnesium. The effect o f the rivet's geometrical features, including ribs under shoulder and inclination angle under shoulder, were examined using two evaluation criteria, i.e., rivet shank flaring value and remaining thickness, and found that the rivet with no ribs and 10 deg inclination angle under shoulder is suitable for joining 1 mm AA6061-T6 to 2.2 mm AZ31B in F-SPR process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]