REAL TIME ULTRASONIC ALUMINUM SPOT WELD MONITORING SYSTEM

Aluminum alloys pose several properties that make them one of the most popular engineering materials: they have excellent corrosion resistance, and high weight-to-strength ratio. Resistance spot welding of aluminum alloys is widely used today but oxide film and aluminum thermal and electrical properties make spot welding a difficult task. Electrode degradation due to pitting, alloying and mushrooming decreases the weld quality and adjustment of parameters like current and force is required. To realize these adjustments and ensure weld quality, a tool to measure weld quality in real time is required. In this paper, a real time ultrasonic non-destructive evaluation system for aluminum spot welds is presented. The system is able to monitor nugget growth while the spot weld is being made. This is achieved by interpreting the echoes of an ultrasound transducer located in one of the welding electrodes. The transducer receives and transmits an ultrasound signal at different times during the welding cycle. Valuable information of the weld quality is embedded in this signal. The system is able to determine the weld nugget diameter by measuring the delays of the ultrasound signals received during the complete welding cycle. The article presents the system performance on aluminum alloy AA6022.