Experimental Study on Spot Weld and Plug Weld of Automotive Body Panel

This paper presents a comparison of an experimental study on spot and plug welding of an automotive body panel. Spot welding is a common joining technology used in automotive body panel assembly. In automotive body repair, however, plug welding is widely used due to its technical simplicity and cost benefit. Some researchers have focused on the use of spot welding in the manufacturing process, but there has been very little research done with respect to the engineering analysis of the plug welding process. In this study, two kinds of specimens are considered to compare the difference of failure strength between spot weld and plug weld: normal tension and shear tension. The experimental results show, in both normal tension and shear tension, that spot welding has higher failure strength than plug welding. In addition, plug welding is more vulnerable to shear tension than normal tension. This study can be applied to further studies on practical optimization for maintenance and repair of automotive body panels.