Small-scale resistance spot welding of austenitic stainless steels

Small-scale resistance spot welding (SSRSW) was carried out for austenitic stainless steels. A weld lobe that shows the process window for making sound joints was obtained for type 304 stainless steel thin sheets, and the effects of welding current, force and weld time on joint strength and nugget size were investigated. The cooling rate that was estimated from the solidification cell size was approximately 2.4 × 10⁵ K/s which is almost similar to that produced by laser beam welding. The microstructures of weld zones were almost fully austenitic due to the rapid solidification rate. Despite the fully austenitic microstructure, no hot cracking was found in types 302, 304, 316L, 310S and 347 austenitic stainless steels by SSRSW. Rapid cooling rate in SSRSW made it difficult to predict the microstructures from the conventional Schaeffler diagram.