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There has been a substantial increase in the use of advanced high strength steel in automotive structures in the last few years. The usage of these materials is projected to grow significantly in the next 5–10 years with new safety and fuel economy regulations. These new materials have significant manufacturing challenges, particularly for welding and stamping. Proper understanding of the weldability of these materials is critical for successful application in future vehicle programs. This paper presents our production experience in use of DP600. Development work on the effect of weld tips on button size, and shrinkage voids due to different welding variables is discussed. The paper also provides recommendations from the current experimental knowledge base for applications on higher grades of steel (DP780 and beyond).

Joining methods for spaceframe architectures using extruded structural elements are getting popular. At present, the development of lightweight vehicles, in particular aluminum intensive vehicles, requires substantial development of manufacturing processes for the joining and assembling. Joining methods, such as electric arc resistance, and laser beam fusion welding together with nonfusion ultrasonic welding rise as possible alternatives for high volume joining of aluminum. In this study, metal inert gas (MIG) welding was used to join heat treatable extruded 6063 T6 aluminum alloys. The purpose of this study was to find optimum MIG welding parameters for joining 6063-T6 extruded aluminum. Also, the MIG welding equipment used in this study is OTC TP 350 DF weld power supply and DR-4000 robotic system. The welding process factors considered were power input (voltage, current, and torch speed), pulse frequency, gas flow rate, torch angle and arc intensity.

Aluminum alloys are becoming more lucrative in automotive structural applications. In recent automotive history, 5xxx and 6xxx aluminum alloys are being used in various structural applications. Various joining methods are also popular for joining 5xxx, and 6xxx series alloys. In this study, gas metal are welding (GMAW) also referred as metal inert gas (MIG) welding is used to join a non-heat-treatable alloy. The objective of this paper is to develop optimum weld process factors for double lap joint configuration for non-heat-treatable 5754 aluminum alloy. Ultimately, these optimum weld factor settings (also referred as weld schedules) will be used in the plant level for joining 5754 alloy materials. Also, the MIG welding equipment used in this study is OTC TP 350 DF weld power supply and DR-4000 robotic system. The weld factors selected for this study to understand the influence on lap shear load failure are power input (torch speed, voltage, current, wire feed), and gas flow rate.