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- 2011 (2) (entfernen)
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- Advanced high strength steels (2) (entfernen)
A method is reported with which heat affected zone (HAZ) cracks in a specific region of spot welded joints, made of advanced high strength steels, could be realised. The influence of HAZ cracks on the fatigue behaviour, which is the focus of the contribution, was studied by evaluating the stiffness characteristics as a function of the number of cycles N in comparison with crack-free specimens, i.e. by analysing HAZ and fatigue cracks on the specimen surface and the surface of fatigue fractures containing beach marks. It was found that the fatigue cracks are not initiated at the HAZ cracks. The number of cycles to failure Nf is not significantly reduced for specimens with HAZ cracks. Overall, the examinations did not reveal any influence of HAZ cracks on the fatigue strength of resistance spot welded joints.
Resistance spot welded joints made of two advanced high strength steels (AHSS) and one high strength steel (HSS) were examined. In the high cycle fatigue regime tests were realised for one loading condition, and the load and the displacement were measured. From the load and displacement range, the stiffness was calculated and in situ normalised to its value after 1000 cycles. It was thus possible to use the normalised stiffness evaluated during the experiment as failure criterion for the fatigue test of resistance spot welded joints. In order to evaluate this failure criterion, fatigue cracks were produced in the three different steel grades mentioned above according to user-specified levels of the normalised stiffness. It was found that the fatigue crack area increases linearly and the through-sheet-thickness crack length exponentially with decreasing stiffness. The comparison of the fatigue crack propagation during the fatigue test of the three different tested base metals showed very similar values. The comparability of fatigue tests performed on spot welded joints might thus be improved by the in situ evaluated stiffness as a failure criterion. This can be also used in further work to verify results of computer simulations of the stress intensity factor at spot welds with the help of experimental results.