A Study on convection in molten zone of aluminum alloy during Fe/Al resistance spot welding

Iyota, Muneyoshi*; Matsuda, Tomoki*; Sano, Tomokazu*; Shigeta, Masaya*; Shobu, Takahisa  ; Yumoto, Hirokatsu*; Koyama, Takahisa*; Yamazaki, Hiroshi*; Semba, Yasunori*; Ohashi, Haruhiko*; Goto, Shunji*; Inoue, Ichiro*; Hayashi, Yujiro*; Tamasaku, Kenji*; Osaka, Taito*; Yamada, Jumpei*; Yabashi, Makina*

Aluminum alloys are increasingly being applied to automobile bodies to reduce the weight of automobiles. In joining steel materials and aluminum alloys using resistance spot welding (RSW), it is important to control the state of intermetallic compounds due to the temperature at the joining interface. In other words, in RSW of Fe/Al dissimilar materials, it is necessary to clarify the heating and cooling phenomena of the interface temperature during joining. Although the convection behavior of the molten aluminum alloy is thought to influence the temperature distribution at the joining interface, there are no studies that have directly observed this phenomenon. In this study, convection in molten zone of aluminum alloy during RSW of steel and aluminum alloy is discussed. Direct observations were attempted in order to clarify the convection behavior of the molten aluminum alloy in RSW of steel and aluminum alloy. The main feature of this experiment is that a real-scale test piece and an RSW apparatus used in actual production were used to observe convection during actual production. The observation experiments were conducted using synchrotron radiation X-ray at SPring-8. During welding, the specimens were irradiated with synchrotron radiation X-ray, and convection was observed from the behavior of tracer particles placed on the specimens. As a results, three types of convection were observed: radial outward convection from the center of the molten zone at the joining interface, convection from the edge of the molten zone toward its center, and weak circulating convection at the edge of the molten zone. And, small convection velocities were generated at the edge of the molten zone. Furthermore, the convection velocity inside the molten zone was calculated to be approximately 1.75 m/s. In addition, it was shown that there is a correlation between convection behavior and the shape of the molten zone.