AISI/DOE Technology Roadmap Program: Development of Appropriate Resistance Spot Welding Practice for Transformation-Hardened Steels

Chuko, Wayne ; Gould, Jerry

American Iron and Steel Institute

关键词: Testing;    36 Materials Science;    Welding;    Metallography;    Production;   

DOI  :  10.2172/797407
RP-ID  :  DOE/ID/13554 Report 9934
RP-ID  :  FC07-97ID13554
RP-ID  :  797407

美国|英语

来源: UNT Digital Library

【 摘 要 】

This report describes work accomplished in the project, titled ''Development of Appropriate Resistance Spot Welding Practice for Transformation-Hardened Steels.'' The Phase 1 of the program involved development of in-situ temper diagrams for two gauges of representative dual-phase and martensitic grades of steels. The results showed that tempering is an effective way of reducing hold-time sensitivity (HTS) in hardenable high-strength sheet steels. In Phase 2, post-weld cooling rate techniques, incorporating tempering, were evaluated to reduce HTS for the same four steels. Three alternative methods, viz., post-heating, downsloping, and spike tempering, for HTS reduction were investigated. Downsloping was selected for detailed additional study, as it appeared to be the most promising of the cooling rate control methods. The downsloping maps for each of the candidate steels were used to locate the conditions necessary for the peak response. Three specific downslope conditions (at a fix ed final current for each material, timed for a zero-, medium-, and full-softening response) were chosen for further metallurgical and mechanical testing. Representative samples, were inspected metallographically, examining both local hardness variations and microstructures. The resulting downslope diagrams were found to consist largely of a C-curve. The softening observed in these curves, however, was not supported by subsequent metallography, which showed that all welds made, regardless of material and downslope condition, were essentially martensitic. CCT/TTT diagrams, generated based on microstructural modeling done at Oak Ridge National Laboratories, showed that minimum downslope times of 2 and 10 s for the martensitic and dual-phase grades of steels, respectively, were required to avoid martensite formation. These times, however, were beyond those examined in this study. These results show that downsloping is not an effective means of reducing HTS for production resistance spot welding (RSW). The necessary downslope times (2-10s) are prohibited by the welding rates currently used today (up to 60 welds/s). Based on the observations made in this study, spike tempering appears to be the best compromise of microstructural improvement and short cycle time. It is recommended that future work be focused on exploring the robustness of this approach, and its applicability for a wider range of steels.