Development of 3D Coupling Analysis Method for Spot Welding by Idealized Explicit FEM

Abstract

In this study, the authors developed a three-dimensional coupling analysis method for spot welding by using Idealized Explicit FEM, which can analyze large-scale welding residual stress and deformation problems in practical computing time. This proposed method was applied to a spot welding problem to show its analysis accuracy. It was found that the nugget sizes obtained by experimental measurements and the method are in good agreement. In addition, to investigate the effect of shunt current on the nugget size in multiple-spot welding, the method was applied to three-dimensional spot welding with four points of welding. As a result, it was shown that the influence of shunt current in multiple-spot welding can be evaluated by using the proposed method in realistic computing time.