Numerical Analysis of Transport Phenomena in Resistance Spot Welding Process

Resistance Spot Welding (RSW) is a very complicated process involving electro-magnetic, thermal, fluid flow, mechanical and metallurgical variables. Since weld nugget area is close and unobservable with experimental means, numerical methods are mainly used to reveal the nugget formation mechanism. Traditional RSW models focus on the electro-thermal behaviors in the nugget, and do not have the ability to model mass transport caused by induced magnetic forces in the molten nugget. In this paper, a multi-physics model, which comprehensively considers the coupling of electric, magnetic, thermal and flow fields during RSW, temperature-dependent physical properties and phase transformation, is used to investigate the heat and mass transport laws in the weld nugget and to reveal the interaction of the heat and mass transports. Results show that the heat transport behaviors in the weld nugget, the profile of the nugget, and the thermal field evolution are significantly changed when the mass transport is considered. At the same time, a good agreement is also found between experimental and numerically calculated nugget sizes. As a result, when predicting crystal growth process, the effects of the mass transport should be considered in order to obtain a more accurate prediction results.