Single-Sided Resistance

Spot Welding for Auto

Body Assembly
BY YONGJOON CHO, INSUNG CHANG, AND HEUIBOM LEE

Single-side access holds promise for applications that

normally are difficult to resistance spot weld such as
hydroformed and closed-section parts
esistance spot welding (RSW) has This article focuses on developing a

R been widely employed in sheet

metal fabrication for several
decades. The automotive industry, for ex-
new RSW technology and its potential for
improving the traditional RSW issues. A
new welding system was designed that
ample, prefers RSW because it is a simple could make a weld using single-sided ac-
and cost-effective joining method. Resis- cess with low electrode force. Using the
tance spot welding is performed on thou- system, spot welds were made using only
sands of spots for every passenger vehicle; single-sided access with or without a back-
therefore, each welded spot has its own ing plate. Various tests were completed to
importance not only with regard to qual- understand the characteristics of the sys-
ity but also for production manufacturing. tem. Weldability lobe curves were also de-
Because of the nature of a conventional termined in terms of welding time and cur-
RSW machine, sheet metals have to be in- rent along with electrode force. Finally,
serted between upper and lower elec- this technique was applied to a number of
trodes. However, this introduces various automotive assembly cases and the results
limitations for RSW of an automotive were discussed.
body assembly:
1) In order to make a weld on the auto- Experimental Setup
body floor, a large C-type gun is needed
to access the weld spots. Sometimes the The experimental procedure was di-
mouth size of the gun is larger than 1 m vided into two stages: lab-oriented speci-
resulting in it being hard to teach and men tests and field-oriented automotive
maintain. parts tests. Lab-oriented tests were done
2) Many welding spots are located in by tensile-shear coupon — Fig. 1. In order
closed-section parts that an ordinary RSW to investigate the effect of a backing plate
gun cannot access. In those cases, arc or on weld quality, copper backing plates
laser beam welding techniques can be al- (electrodes) were used with and without
ternatives to RSW; however, both holes. Figure 1A depicts the size and
processes have their own weak points. Arc arrangement of the coupons. Figure 1B
welding has thermal deformation and shows an experimental setup for single-
quality control issues. While laser beam sided spot welding with a backing plate. A
YONGJOON CHO (yongjoon@hyundai- welding has unique advantages, it is very holed (30-mm) backing plate was used to
motor.com), INSUNG CHANG, and expensive. simulate single-sided spot welding with-
HEUIBOM LEE are with Hyundai Motor 3) New joining methods are needed for out a backing plate — Fig. 1C.
Co., Gyeonggi-Do, Korea. newly developed sheet metal forming Field-oriented tests were made using
technology. Hydroformed parts are usu- real automotive parts and a robot system.
Based on a paper presented at the AWS De- ally difficult to join with conventional Welding was performed on a specially de-
troit Section’s Sheet Metal Welding Confer- RSW due to the high electrode force and signed single-sided welding machine.
ence XII, May 10–12, 2006, Livonia, Mich. their geometry. Thanks to the high-grade transformer and

26 AUGUST 2006
 Fig. 2 — Configuration of the single-sided RSW system.

Fig. 1— Experimental setup for tensile-

shear test coupon. A — Size of coupons
(mm); B — single-sided RSW with backing
plate; and C — single-sided RSW without
backing plate.

fine inverter control of the machine, it is

possible to extend the secondary cable up
to 20 m. A robot system with a 200-kg max-
imum load capacity was used to maintain
proper reaction force of the single-sided
welding gun. Schematic configuration of
the system is shown in Fig. 2. Secondary
cables were connected with a single-sided
welding gun and ground plates. The robot Fig. 3 — Typical single-sided RSW weldability lobe curve.
controller integrated and managed all the
actions of the welding and communication.
formed parts. The most challenging issues
Large Panel with Members
Results and Discussion with regard to using hydroformed parts in
and Brackets
the body-in-white are joining them with
The results reported in this section de- In order to make a weld with members other structures, such as panels, rein-
scribe the characteristics of the single- and brackets on the large panel, such as forcements, brackets, etc., due to their
sided RSW machine and its application the center floor of the auto body, a large closed-section geometry. While arc or
examples. Various types of closed-section C-type gun is needed to access in the mid- laser welding can be a solution, the sin-
spots were tested and showed good re- dle of the panel. Since complicated jig fix- gle-sided RSW technique can be another
sults. A few limitations and challenges of tures and clamping devices are located un- great solution. Once brackets or flanges
the system are also discussed. derneath the panel, it is very hard to teach are welded onto hydroformed parts (Fig.
the robot the right position with proper 5), those parts are easily assembled with
cycle time — Fig. 4A. Once the single- conventional RSW.
Weldability Lobe Curve
sided RSW system is adopted for this ap-
Welding was performed on various plication, fixture and clamping units can Preassembled Parts
combinations of automotive sheet metals be dramatically reduced — Fig. 4B.
(0.7- to 1.6-mm thickness, coated, un- Thanks to the easy access to the weld Usually, large parts are assembled at
coated, advanced high-strength steel, with spots, cycle time also can be decreased. original equipment manufacturers
or without a backing plate, etc.). The typ- (OEMs). This means the OEMs need
ical weldability lobe curve of single-sided large facilities with complicated manufac-
Hydroformed Parts
RSW is shown in Fig. 3. The experimen- turing processes. Once parts are provided
tal setup of Fig. 1B was used with coated Hydroformed auto parts are getting as a preassembled unit, lean assembly line
steel [0.8t (upper sheet) + 1.4t (lower used more widely due to their flexible manufacturing can be achieved with a
sheet)]. Because of the low electrode force geometry and high stiffness. A recent ap- minimum number of production cells. As
(500 N), acceptable welds were obtained plication is reported in which body mem- shown in Fig. 6, package tray panels are
at a relatively low current range. bers and pillars are replaced with hydro- assembled with three stages. In this case,

WELDING JOURNAL 27
 Fig. 5 — Single-sided RSW of hydroformed
parts.

considered to guarantee a good-quality

weld. First, the thickness of the upper
sheet should be no more than 1.4 mm. A
weld can be made with thicker sheet; how-
ever, due to the low electrode force, it is
very hard to set up a point contact between
sheets where proper current density is
needed for molten nugget. Second, lower
sheets have to have a certain amount of
stiffness to support the single-sided elec-
trode force. Therefore, geometry and
thickness of the lower sheets are very im-
portant. Basically, two-sheet welding is
recommended unless the geometric struc-
ture of the third or forth sheet is strong
enough to maintain electrode force.
Fig. 4 — Single-sided RSW of a large panel. A — Large C-type gun with jig and clamping
units; and B — single-sided gun with backing plates. Conclusions
An automated single-sided RSW sys-
the package tray side panel has to be been tested; the benefits are also listed. tem was introduced and various applica-
welded in the first stage and then the side • Closed section parts: alternatives for tions to automotive body assembly are dis-
outer panel is assembled, resulting in body conventional single-sided welding cussed in this research. The weldability
side complete. After that, this complete processes. lobe curve shows that operating points can
is built together with a package tray at a • Jig-less clamping units for laser beam be found at a relatively low welding cur-
later assembly station. However, if the welding: easy-to-control gaps for rent range due to the low electrode force.
package tray assembly is preassembled coated steel. Because only single-side access is neces-
(Fig. 7), the manufacturing process can • Flexible configuration of production sary to make a good weld, great potential
be reduced to two stages; body side com- line: no more limitations on closed sec- advantages can be found in the joining of
plete stage and its joining stage with pack- tion. large panels. The single-sided system can
age tray assembly. In order to assemble • Indentation-free welds (backing plate also be used for applications that are dif-
package tray panels on the body side com- side): good appearance with low elec- ficult to spot weld, such as hydroformed
plete, a single-sided welding technique is trode force. or closed-section parts. Due to the simple
needed. While arc or laser beam welding • Mismatched parts: relatively robust for system configuration and easy-access ca-
may not be a perfect solution due to the gap/mismatch issues. pability, productivity can be increased by
gap issue of the end of the panel edge, sin- There are many advantages of using improving cycle time and reducing main-
gle-sided RSW has sufficient electrode the single-sided RSW system. It offers a tenance efforts. Although some limita-
force to control the gap. simple system configuration and easy- tions exist, this technique can be a great
access capability. Other advantages in- alternative to conventional single-sided
clude the need for smaller facilities, sheet metal joining processes. ◆
Other Applications
shorter cycle times, easy maintainance, ef-
Since the single-sided RSW system was fortless robot teaching, etc. References
developed to make closed-section welds,
various other applications have been pre- Limitations and Challenges 1. Dickinson, D. W., Franklin, J. E., and
sented. Low electrode force and long sec- Stanya, A. 1980. Characterization of spot
ondary cables make the system feasible at Even though single-sided access of spot welding behavior by dynamic electrical pa-
an automated body line with proper cycle welding gun gives us a great advantage, a rameter monitoring. Welding Journal
time. The following applications have few limitations and challenges have to be 59(6): 170-s to 176-s.

28 AUGUST 2006
Fig. 6 — Conventional way to build package tray panels.

Fig. 7 — Proposed way to build preassembled package tray panels.

2. Thornton, P. H., Krause, A. R., and 82(8): 195-s to 201-s.

Davies, R. G. 1996. Contact resistances in 5. Gould, J. E., and Peterson, W. A.
spot welding. Welding Journal 75(12): 402-s 1989. A detailed examination of weldabil-
to 412-s. ity lobes for a range of zinc-coated steels,
3. Han, A., Indacochea, J. E., Chen, C. SAE Technical Paper No. 880279.
H., and Bhat, S. 1993. Weld nugget devel- 6. C1.1M/C1.1-2000, Recommended
opment and integrity in resistance spot weld- Practice for Resistance Welding. Miami,
ing of high-strength cold-rolled sheet steels. Fla.: American Welding Society.
Welding Journal 72(5): 209-s to 265-s. 7. Hyundai Motors Co. 1990. Specifi-
4. Cho, Y., and Rhee, S. 2003. Experi- cations of material standard and proce-
mental study of nugget formation in re- dures for determining the weldability of
sistance spot welding. Welding Journal auto steel.

WELDING JOURNAL 29