Microstructure and mechanical performance of resistance spot welded martensitic advanced high strength steel

Abstract

Resistance spot welded 1.2 mm (t)-thick 1400 MPa martensitic steel (MS1400) samples are fabricated and their microstructure, mechanical properties are investigated thoroughly. The mechanical performance and failure modes exhibit a strong dependence on weld-nugget size. The pull-out failure mode for MS1400 steel resistance spot welds does not follow the conventional weldnugget size recommendation criteria of 4t0.5 . Significant softening was observed due to dual phase microstructure of ferrite and martensite in the inter-critical heat affected zone (HAZ) and tempered martensite (TM) structure in sub-critical HAZ. However, the upper-critical HAZ exhibits obvious higher hardness than the nugget zone (NZ). In addition, the mechanical properties show that the cross-tension strength (CTS) is about one quarter of the tension-shear strength (TSS) of MS1400 weld joints, whilst the absorbed energy of cross-tension and tension-shear are almost identical.