Influencing factors on nugget formation during multipoint welding by single-side resistance spot welding

ABSTRACT

Recently, weight reduction and improvement of crashworthiness of auto bodies have become important issues. At the same time, stiffness of auto bodies is also needed to ensure a smooth ride. Using hollow parts, such as bended pipes and hydroformed parts, is one of the solutions to the demand for both rigidity and light weight.

To weld hollow parts and sheet panels together, welding methods which allow us to access from one side are required. Single-side resistance spot welding (single-side RSW) process is one of those, and has recently been attracting attention.

However, because of the long current path and small electrode force, it is difficult to concentrate the electric current in the welding spot compared with conventional direct resistance spot welding (direct RSW). Furthermore, in multipoint welding, shunt current will occur easily, and the nugget formation will be inhibited.

To obtain a guideline for making sound nuggets, influencing factors for shunt current were investigated. In addition, a numerical study was carried out to discuss the difference between direct RSW and single-side RSW.

According to the CAE analysis, the shunt current of single-side RSW will be higher rate than direct RSW. The rate of shunt current was influenced by the electrical resistance of its current path. For this reason, with shorter distance between welding points, or with lower electrical resistance of material, it is difficult to get large nuggets. By enhancing the electrical resistance of shunt current path, shunt current could be reduced and a larger nugget would be obtained.     

Bipolar DC corona discharge from a floating filamentary metalparticle

The motion of a filamentary particle and also the discharge from a particle have been extensively investigated for the development of a prevention and protection method against breakdown in gas-insulated switchgear. The particle showed several different patterns of motion, e.g., "standing," precession motion, oscillating up and down, etc. Each of these types of motion depends on corona discharge from the particle itself. Since this motion cannot be explained only by monopolar discharge from one end of a particle, bipolar discharge from both ends of a particle occurring simultaneously has been investigated by applying the floating particle method. The particle length and the gap between the particle and electrode were chosen as parameters. From experimental results, several interesting features were obtained. The curve of bipolar corona. current lies between negative and positive corona currents of monopolar curves. There is a sudden current increase at the threshold voltage that seems to be a new feature of the corona current from a filamentary particle. So far, the experimental results indicate that this threshold voltage is not a function of particle length, but it could depend slightly on length. Flashover voltage is a function of particle length and the gap. It decreases with length and increases with the gap     

Effect of ion implantation layer on adhesion of DLC film by plasma-based ion implantation and deposition

High adhesive diamond-like carbon (DLC) film on SUS304 was obtained using carbon ion implantation between DLC film and substrate material by plasma-based ion implantation and deposition (PBIID). Implantation of mixed silicon and carbon ions to the substrate resulted in much higher adhesion strength than that of the epoxy resin. Effect of ion implantation on adhesion of DLC film was studied by cross sectional STEM observation and EDS element analysis. Enhancement in adhesive strength by ion implantation of mixed carbon and silicon was ascribed to the formation of the multilayer interface consisting of mixed carbon and silicon ion implanted layer and the amorphous layer of carbon and silicon.     

Organic nutrients for microbial enhanced oil recovery

Abstract

Glass vial tests were conducted to quickly screen nutrient mixtures for microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR). Common nutrients, such as food grade milk, were applied to 190 vial cultivation experiments. Five of the nutrient mixtures used in the glass vial tests showed no hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) production. These five were then assessed for oil recovery in a core flooding test. Four of the five nutrient mixtures showed an increased oil recovery of 10%, without H₂S production. Thus, the glass vial test was useful for screening through multiple nutrient mixtures quickly before analysis in the core flooding test.     

Multi-color light-emitting transistors composed of organic single crystals

We report a novel concept for multi-color light emission from an ambipolar organic single-crystal transistor using natural optical waveguides, the self-absorption effect, Davydov splitting and the unique alignment of the transition dipole moments. We used 9,10-bis-(2,2-diphenylvinyl)-anthracene single crystals to produce blue and green light from identical single-crystal transistors. We also observed red light, which corresponds to the emission from in-gap states that are caused by impurities. Importantly, each of these different colors corresponds to a distinguishable light polarization, which enables us to tune the emission color by using a light polarizer.     

Lubrication using porous surface layer for cold drawing of steel wire

As a lubricant for steel cold working, metal soap on zinc phosphate coating is widely used. However the lubrication causes hazardous wastes, and hence an alternative system is demanded. The authors proposed to utilize porous layer on workpiece surface as a reservoir of liquid lubricant. In this study, 0.64%C steel wires were oxidized at 923 K under air and chemically reduced by pure hydrogen to form porous surface layer with pores 1–2 μm in diameter. In cold drawing with machine oil, the friction coefficient on the porous surface was 0.06, while that on normal surface was 0.11. The lubrication mechanism with porous surface is discussed.     

Solution properties of amylose tris(n-butylcarbamate). Helical and global conformation in alcohols

Particle scattering functions P(k), z-average radii of gyration <S²>_z^1/2, intrinsic viscosities [η], infrared absorption (IR) spectra, and specific rotations have been determined by light and/or small-angle X-ray scattering, viscometry, IR, and polarimetry for narrow distribution samples of amylose tris(n-butylcarbamate) (ATBC) ranging in weight-average molecular weight from 1.7 × 10⁴ to 1.7 × 10⁶ in 2-propanol at 35 °C, 1-propanol at 40 (or 35) °C, 2-ethoxyethanol at 25 °C, and 2-butanol at 45 °C. The two propanols are found to attain the theta state at 35 °C. The number fraction f₁₆₉₈ of intramolecular hydrogen bonds between the CO and NH groups of the ATBC chain is obtained from IR spectra, and the helix pitch h (or the contour length) per residue and the Kuhn segment length λ⁻¹ are estimated to be 0.25-0.29 nm and 20-40 nm, respectively, from analyses of P(k), <S²>_z, and [η] data on the basis of the wormlike chain. The relationship among the three parameters (f₁₆₉₈, h, and λ⁻¹) in the four alcohols and that among the previous estimates in tetrahydrofuran-methanol mixtures are explained in a unified manner by a two-state model, in which each chain consists of semiflexible (loosely helical) and rodlike (rigid helical) sequences. Namely, h increases when intramolecular hydrogen bonds are broken. This differs from the case of amylose tris(phenylcarbamate) for which the bulkiness of polar solvent molecules extends the helix of the polymer.     

High-Gain Digital Speech Interpolation with Adaptive Differential PCM Encoding

This paper describes a digital speech interpolationadaptive differential PCM bit reduction technique in which digital speech interpolation (DSI) is combined with ADPCM encoding. A highly sensitive speech detector, a voiceband data discriminator, and a variable rate ADPCM encoding are used to achieve a high compression ratio. The speech detector proposed in [1] detects speech signals above -51 dBm with 32 ms hangover time; average talk spurt activity of 36 percent was measured on fully loaded trunks in an international satellite link. Features of the speech power spectrum are used for adaptively controlling the bit length from 2 to 4 in an ADPCM speech encoder. Voiceband data are detected with 10 ms by the voiceband data discriminator. 5 bit ADPCM encoding is applied to voiceband data to maintain transparency through the DSI-ADPCM system. A DSI gain of 3 is expected as a result of the highly sensitive speech detection, the variable rate encoding technique, and the voiceband data discrimination. Speech and voiceband data are efficiently transmitted through an ADPCM encoding with either a 6 or 6.4 kHz sampling rate converted from an 8 kHz sampling rate. To avoid a band limitation as much as possible, a frequency shift manipulation on the voiceband channel is incorporated prior to the sampling conversion. Consequently, a total bit reduction gain of 7 to 4 is expected relative to a 64 kbit/s PCM transmission. Satisfactorily high quality of the processed speech has been obtained through computer simulations.