MORE | Spring 2020

Analyzing the Effect of Contact Resistance on the Temperature Field Evolution During Resistance Spot Welding

Resistance spot welding is used to join metal sheets together by sandwiching workpieces between two electrodes passing a high current through the assembly which generates resistive heating that melts the workpieces together. The primary research question answered is how the contact resistance influences the temperature field evolution of a copper-aluminum-copper stackup during resistance spot welding. This was investigated by developing a finite element model in ANSYS that included the copper-aluminum-copper geometry and the respective contact resistances that vary with temperature and pressure. The results can be used to improve the durability of spot-welded components within car batteries.