Abstract
Spot-welded joints are widely used in automobile structures. Since a typical vehicle contains several thousands of spot welds, it is often not practical in a vehicle structural analysis to model each and every spot-welded joint in detail. As such, simplified structural models have been proposed in the literature for spot-welded joints in large-scale structural computations. To be adequate, a simplified joint model must be able to produce relevant loading, stress or deformation quantities around a joint that are sufficiently accurate when compared to the results of a more refined model. To this end, the current paper describes the findings of a careful study in which several types of simplified finite element structural models for spot-welded joints are implemented with several mesh refinements and their performance is evaluated against converged three-dimensional finite element models. Various loading conditions and joint parameters are considered. The evaluation is carried out based on comparisons of the structural stiffness of the joint. A detailed error analysis is provided. It is found that most of the simplified joint models and mesh refinements have good accuracy when a joint is subjected to tension, torsion, and out-of-plane bending. However, under in-plane bending and torsion conditions, large errors are introduced even when fine meshes are used.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1175-1194 |
Number of pages | 20 |
Journal | Finite Elements in Analysis and Design |
Volume | 40 |
Issue number | 9-10 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jun 2004 |
Scopus Subject Areas
- Analysis
- General Engineering
- Computer Graphics and Computer-Aided Design
- Applied Mathematics
Keywords
- Finite element
- Joint model
- Spot weld
- Weld nugget