ESTIMATION OF THERMAL CONTACT CONDUCTANCE DURING RESISTANCE SPOT WELDING

This article describes an experimental procedure conducted to estimate and investigate the transient thermal contact conductance (or thermal contact resistance) between the electrodes and workpieces during resistance spot welding. A fine thermal metrology was developed to collect thermal histories near the welding region. Indeed, the electrode tip was instrumented with several interior microthermocouples for measuring the transient temperature response during the welding process. A simple mathematical model, using an inverse heat transfer method, was built for the estimation of the transient heat transfer coefficient from interior transient temperature measurements. A simple resistance welding case of two steel sheets was investigated. The initial transient values of thermal contact conductance were found to be in agreement with those observed in the dry copper–steel solid contact case. At the end of the process, the transient heat transfer coefficient reaches a high value corresponding to the best heat transfer phenomenon at the interface during the welding process. When the metal is melted, the contact quality increases due to the high-applied electrode force. Higher electrode force and heating temperatures produce lower thermal contact resistance. The results obtained show the capabilities and the power of the coupled thermal metrology and transient inverse technique developed to investigate thermal history of resistance spot welding.