OVERVIEW ON OPTIMIZATION APPROACHES FOR RESISTANCE SPOT WELDING PARAMETERS AND WELDED JOINT QUALITY Authors:

This paper presents an overview on optimization methods applied to optimize welding parameters in order to have good weld quality of mechanical characteristic of Resistance Spot Welded (RSW) joints. The qualities of the spot welded joints are defined by the mechanical properties. The aim of optimization method is to determine optimal RSW parameters associated with good mechanical performance of RSW joints. Taguchi method used S/N ratio to measure the quality characteristic deviating from the desired value. Analysis of variance “ANOVA” helps to test the significance of all main factors by comparing the mean square against an estimate of the experimental errors at specific confidence levels. Also ANOVA method permits to show out the factors which have a significant effect on the sensitivity of the process and their contribution on quality characteristics especially tensile shear strength of the Resistance spot welding joint. Additionally, presented methods are detailed to show some examples of optimization processes.