Numerical Prediction of Various Failure Modes in Spotweld Steel Material

Crash simulation is targeted mainly carried out by the collision regulations FMVSS simulation to identify problems in vehicle structures. A modern car structure consist of several thousand weld-type connections, and failure in these connections plays an important role for the crashworthiness of the vehicle. Therefore accurate modeling of these connections is important for the automotive industry in order to improve Vehicle collision characteristics.

In pursuit of this key requirement, we introduced a proper methodology for the development detailed weld model to study structural response of the weld when the applied load range is beyond the yield strength. Three-dimensional finite element (FE) models of spot welded joints are developed using the LS-Dyna FE code. In this process the force estimation model of spot welds is explained. The results from this paper shows good agreement between the simulations and the tests. Therefore, spot weld model obtained from this study should be considered for applications in crash analysis.