Effects of Spot Welding Parameters on the Shear Characteristics of Aluminum Honeycomb Core Sandwich Panels in Aircraft structure

Abstract

Honeycomb structures possess the geometry of a honeycomb to permit the minimization of the quantity of the utilized material to reach minimal weight and minimal material cost. Today honeycomb cores are manufactured via the adhesive process from metal (usually aluminum). In this work, a resistance spot welding (RSW) was used as a new technique for manufacturing of honeycomb structure instead of an adhesivetechnique for aluminum alloys. The effect of resistance spot welding parameters on the shear force of spot welding for honeycomb structure was studiedvia employing theDesign of Experiment (DOE) software with the technique of Response Surface Methodology (RSM). The welding parameters were electrodes forces, welding time and squeeze time after welding. The experiments included welding (20) pieces from aluminum alloy 3003 with dimension (76×16)mm and 0.5mm as thickness according to American Welding Society (AWS).RSM technique was employed to model and optimize the shear stresses in terms of the welding parameters. Results showed that RSW shear strength at the optimum condition is 62.07MPa, while the shear strength of threetypes of adhesive materialis (0.128,0.371 and 1.28 MPa).That means the resistance spot welding is a suitable technique for manufacturing of honeycomb structure.