Development of a crash behaviour prediction method for resistance spot welded 3-steel sheet joints

The recent trend towards extensive electric mobility leads to a variety of new challenges for the engineering of future vehicle concepts. One particular challenge is the additional weight added to the vehicle by the battery, which stands in direct contrast to the existing customer expectation of a high driving range. The reduction of the total vehicle weight is driven by the extensive use of ultra-high-strength steels in thin sheet thicknesses in car body construction. Resistance spot welding is the dominant joining process in steel-intensive lightweight construction due to its high degree of automation, process reliability and the associated economic efficiency. In order to comply limitations of the space in the vehicle body and to ensure the most efficient use of materials in lightweight construction, joints are used that connect several sheets with a single spot weld. This leads to new challenges for the prediction of the load-bearing capacity and failure behaviour under crash loading. This paper presents a systematic characterisation of 3 sheet steel joints in order to find formulary, empirical relationships between the load-bearing capacity of the joint and the affecting parameters. Numerical simulations are carried out in order to clarify the causes of occurring phenomena in experiments. For this purpose, influencing variables such as joint strength, joint arrangement, sheet thickness, sheet strength, load type and load case on the load bearing capacity and failure behaviour are identified. Furthermore, the extent to which the behaviour of 2-sheet joints can be transferred to 3-sheet joints is investigated. A formulary correlation enables a quick and inexpensive estimates of the load-bearing capacity of 3-sheet metal connections. These models can be used for a computer-efficient simulation of components with three layered spot welded joints.