LOAD CAPACITY OF LIGHTWEIGHT PANELS ASSEMBLED BY SPOT WELDING

Abstract

Spot welding is a low cost and effective method of assembling complex structures that are made from alumimium or steel thin plates. In order to ensure efficiency, safety and reliability of spot welded joints an adequate understanding of their behaviour is necessary. If the joint is well designed and correctly executed, the junction by spot welding ought to be as strong as the assembled components of the structure and most certainly should not be the reason for reducing the load capacity. The major factors determining the integrity of a spot welded assembling are selection of the most appropriate locations of the welding spots, adequate selection of welding equipment parameters, strict quality control in production and monitoring in service. This work focuses on the evaluation based on finite element analyses of the load capacity of any type of steel panel with corrugated core assembled with the upper and bottom plates by spot welding.