Journal of Manufacturing Processes 28 (2017) 209–219

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Journal of Manufacturing Processes

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Technical Paper

Cold metal transfer spot welding of 1 mm thick AA6061-T6

HaiYang Lei a , YongBing Li a,∗ , Blair E. Carlson b
a
State Key Laboratory of Mechanical System and Vibration, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Digital Manufacture for Thin-walled Structures, School of
Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, PR China
b
Manufacturing Systems Research Lab, General Motors Research & Development Center, 30500 Mound Road, Warren, MI 48090, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In order to meet the upcoming regulations on greenhouse gas emissions, aluminum use in the automotive
Received 28 September 2016 industry is increasing especially in car body structure and closure applications. To address the shift from
Received in revised form 4 June 2017 steel to aluminum, there needs to be a corresponding shift of joining technologies which consequently
Accepted 11 June 2017
drives the development of an effective single sided joining process for aluminum alloys. In this paper, a
Available online 23 June 2017
variant of gas metal arc welding, i.e. cold metal transfer, CMT, which is unique in its approach to reduce
the overall heat input, has been introduced to address that concern. Three welding arc modes: Standard,
Keywords:
Pulsed and CMT are investigated to identify the advantages of CMT mode and the CMT mode was further
Cold metal transfer (CMT)
Spot welding
investigated by four CMT spot welding modes: direct welding (DW) mode, plug welding (PW) mode,
Aluminum alloy direct welding on a chill block (DWB) mode and plug welding on a chill block (PWB) mode. The resultant
welds were investigated by macro and micro metallographic examination, microhardness testing and
mechanical property testing. The results showed that the CMT arc mode could obtain the strongest
welds understandably with the fewest welding defects. Under CMT arc mode, the direct welding with
chill block mode (DWB) produced the largest weld faying interface. These welds also exhibited fewest
partial tearing defects which led to the highest strength and ductility among the four welding modes for
single sided spot welding of 1 mm + 1 mm AA6061-T6 sheet combination.
© 2017 The Society of Manufacturing Engineers. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
In order to reduce the mass of automotive body structures to
achieve improved fuel economy and reduced greenhouse gas emis-
sions, the application of lightweight materials such as aluminum,
magnesium, and composites has been an important approach [1].
Because of the high strength, relatively good formability, corrosion
resistance and recyclability of aluminum alloys, they are the most
widely used class of lightweight materials in the automotive indus-
try. Current North American automotive grade aluminum sheet
production capacity is 90 kt. There is a greater than 400% increase
of announced capacity by 2014 per the Ducker Report and the pro-
jected need by 2020 is beyond this. Thus, it may be safe to assume
that there will be an expansive use of aluminum in the automo-
tive industry which is further exemplified by the move within the
industry from high end, all-aluminum vehicles such as the Audi A8
and Jaguar XJ to the high volume Ford F150.
Self-piercing riveting (SPR), resistance spot welding (RSW), and
friction stir spot welding (FSSW) are conventional spot joining
∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: yongbinglee@sjtu.edu.cn (Y. Li).
processes for aluminum alloys [2–4]. SPR has been widely used
to join aluminum alloys in the automotive industry. This process
has the advantages that there is no need for a pre-drilled hole
and it is capable of producing joints of high static strength and
fatigue strength. However, the use of steel rivets not only increases
manufacturing costs and vehicle mass, but also adds complexity in
regards to end-of-life recycling [2,3]. Furthermore, there is a lim-
itation in regards to rivet size and die configuration for thin gage
aluminum alloy sheets to avoid defects such as cracks which drives
the need for the bottom sheet to be sufficiently thick in order for
the rivet to flare and produce a strong interlock [3].
RSW is the most popular joining method for steel body struc-
tures. However, because of the high thermal conductivity, low
electrical resistivity and oxidized surface layer inherent to alu-
minum alloys, there are a number of problems associated with
conventional RSW of aluminum. Examples of such issues are: high
energy consumption, short electrode life, and unstable weld qual-
ity [5–7]. To overcome the disadvantages of the traditional Al
RSW process, General Motors developed an electrode with mul-
tiple protruding rings, which could penetrate the oxide layers by
straining the aluminum sheet surface during the welding process
[8]. Another novel RSW process named Deltaspot was developed
by Fronius, which introduced a consumable process tape between

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jmapro.2017.06.004
1526-6125/© 2017 The Society of Manufacturing Engineers. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
210 H. Lei et al. / Journal of Manufacturing Processes 28 (2017) 209–219

Table 1
Chemical compositions of AA6061-T6 and electrode wire 4043 (wt.%).

Materials Mg Si Cu Fe Mn Zn Ti Cr Al

AA6061-T6 1.0 0.7 0.32 0.5 0.07 0.12 0.02 0.19 Bal.
ER4043 <0.2 4.5–5.5 – <0.6 <0.15 <0.1 <0.15 – Bal.

the electrodes to produce ideal contact to the aluminum surface.

Hence, heat input into the workpiece could be controlled and the
negative effect of high conductivity of aluminum is compensated.
However, both of these processes require two-sided access.
FSSW is a solid state joining process and as such can avoid typical Fig. 1. Schematic of welding samples for lap-shear tests.
fusion welding-related problems such as severe softening, poros-
ity and solidification cracks. However, the process is limited by a
retained process hole formed by the extraction of the rotating pin in
the final joint, which affects perceived surface quality as well as sig-
nificantly reduces the mechanical properties of the joints with thin
aluminum sheets. Moreover, longer weld cycle times are needed
compared to traditional RSW techniques [4,9] and two-sided access
is also needed for joining.
Arc welding such as metal inert gas (MIG) is a widely used join-
ing process. Aluminum arc plug welding is a conventional spot
weld repair method in the body shop which is an alternative to
the resistance spot weld made at the OEM factories [10]. Neverthe-
less, the high susceptibility to welding cracks, thermally induced
distortion and the lack of control over penetration limit its applica-
tion in welding thin aluminum sheets [11,12]. Cold metal transfer
(CMT), which is a modified MIG welding process, was invented by
the Fronius company in order to eliminate spatter during the arc
welding process. Each time the short circuit occurs, the welding
wire is mechanically retracted, which assists the droplet to detach
at relatively low welding currents, and thus the welding heat input
can be significantly reduced. Therefore, the CMT process is suitable
for the welding of thin gage aluminum alloys with correspond-
ing low distortion and high quality. To date, CMT has been widely
used and studied for seam welding of aluminum alloys, steels, and
dissimilar materials [13–15].
To complement the development of two-sided aluminum join-
ing methods, a low cost, robust, single-sided joining process is
desired for aluminum alloy joints and the CMT solution was cho-
sen for investigation especially because of its advantages in welding Fig. 2. Robotic CMT welding system.
thin gage sheets. In this paper, three welding arc modes, i.e., Stan-
dard, Pulsed and CMT based on the CMT welding system were Tables 1 and 2 respectively. The aluminum alloy sheets were
compared for the selection of the best welding arc modes. Four sheared into rectangular coupons with a size of 38 mm × 130 mm,
different kinds of CMT spot welding modes were proposed to join and the configuration and dimension of the specimens welded for
aluminum alloys, which are the direct welding (DW) mode, plug tensile-shear test are shown in Fig. 1. Three replicas were tested for
welding (PW) mode, direct welding on a chill block (DWB) mode each process parameter combinations.
and plug welding on a chill block (PWB) mode, respectively. The The CMT arc welding process was conducted on a robotic Fro-
critical metrics used to evaluate the relative performance of the nius TPS (Transpuls Synergic) 3200 CMT welding system, as shown
four modes were: weld appearance, microhardness, microstruc- in Fig. 2. Three welding arc modes, i.e., Standard, Pulsed and CMT
ture, tensile strength and fracture morphology. Based upon these could be achieved with the welding system where the system inte-
analyses the optimum process mode was selected. grates the control of wire feed speed (wfs), voltage value, and
current value together through an optimized expert database. The
2. Experimental setup spot welding parameters used in the study for three welding arc
modes at a wfs of 6.6 m/min are listed in Table 3, moreover, the
1 mm thick AA6061-T6 was adopted in this study and ER 4043 wfs and welding time were determined by previous process opti-
electrode wire with a diameter of 1.2 mm was employed as the mization. As presented in Table 3, the entire welding heat input of
filler metal. The nominal chemical compositions and mechan- three welding arc modes was calculated by multiplying the weld-
ical properties of the aluminum alloy and wire are listed in ing current, voltage and welding time. As can be seen, with the

Table 2
Mechanical properties of AA6061-T6 and electrode wire 4043.

Materials Elastic Modulus (GPa) Yield Strength (MPa) Ultimate Tensile Strength (MPa) Elongation Rate (%)

AA60601-T6 71.9 285 334 13.4

ER 4043 71.2 70 145 22
 H. Lei et al. / Journal of Manufacturing Processes 28 (2017) 209–219
Table 3
Process parameters used in CMT spot welding.
Welding parameter
Wire feed speed (m/min)
Welding current (A)
Welding voltage (V)
0.7s
Welding heat input of different welding time (J) 0.9s
1.1s
Welding time (s)
Arc extinguishing time (s)
Wire stick-out (mm)
Shielding gas flow rate (L/min)
Fig. 3. Proposed CMT spot welding modes: (a) direct welding (DW) mode, (b) plug welding (PW) mode, (c) direct welding on a chill block (DWB) mode, (d) plug welding on
a chill block (PWB) mode.
innovative short circuit metal transfer process, the welding heat
input of CMT arc mode was effectively reduced at certain weld-
ing time. Pure Argon with a purity of 99.999% was adopted as the
shielding gas throughout the welding process.
Four welding modes were applied for CMT arc spot welding of
aluminum, refer to Fig. 3. The direct welding (DW) mode shown
in Fig. 3(a) is the simplest and easiest mode to implement. How-
ever, this mode requires significant heat input to melt through the
top sheet, therefore, the plug welding (PW) mode was introduced
which utilized a process hole in the top sheet, refer to Fig. 3(b). Two
additional modes were introduced: direct welding on a chill block
(DWB) and plug welding on a chill block (PWB), refer to Fig. 3(c) and
(d). The chill block not only increases the heat transfer but also acts
as a block to melt-through. Brass with a high melting point and
thermal conductivity was chosen as the material to fabricate the
chill blocks from. Moreover, in contrast with DW and PW modes,
an additional arc extinguishing phase was added in the case of DWB
and PWB modes, refer to Fig. 4, in order to reduce the cooling effect
of the chill block.
Fig. 4. Schematic of CMT spot welding process with arc extinguishing stage.
211
Arc mode
Standard Pulsed CMT
6.6
142 145 148
20.8 21.1 16.6
2070 2140 1720
2660 2750 2210
3250 3370 2700
0.7, 0.9, 1.1
0.5
10
15
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Selecting the welding arc mode
Three different welding arc modes, i.e., Standard, Pulsed and
CMT at the wfs of 6.6 m/min were used to fabricate welds which
were then cross-sectioned and examined with an optical micro-
scope, as presented in Fig. 5. As can be seen in Fig. 5(a)–(c), for all
three welding arc modes, the weld in the upper aluminum sheet
was much wider than in the bottom sheet, since the arc acted in
the weld center and the lateral heat transfer created a bowl shaped
thermal distribution in the two sheets. Moreover, a large portion
of the welding heat was consumed by melting of the top sheet and
was then transferred by the surrounding aluminum base metal,
hence, the molten weld metal could not penetrate into the lower
aluminum substrate to the same extent as in the top sheet.
For the welding arc modes of Standard and Pulsed, the weld
nugget width at the faying interface between the two sheets and
the penetration under the bottom aluminum sheet were both larger
than that of CMT mode due to a larger heat input (2660 and 2750
vs 2210J respectively, refer to Table 3). However, as shown in
Fig. 5(a) and (b), obvious welding defects such as partial tearing
at the notch root could be observed in the welds of Standard and
Pulsed modes, which were much more serious for the Pulsed mode.
This is attributed to the effect of thermally induced stress being
much more severe at larger welding heat inputs i.e., Pulsed mode,
having the highest heat input. During arc welding of aluminum
alloys, hydrogen gas was generally evolved and pushed out in front
of the solidification front during solidification of the molten pool
which led to entrapped pores at the center of the weld nugget
[16]. From the microstructural observations of the welds shown in
Fig. 5(d)–(f), the gas pore levels in the welds of Standard and Pulsed
modes were greater than with the CMT mode, which is attributed to
the fact that these two modes had higher heat inputs and hydrogen
gas solubility increases significantly in molten aluminum with tem-
perature. Although the relative amounts of gas pore corresponded
212 H. Lei et al. / Journal of Manufacturing Processes 28 (2017) 209–219
Fig. 5. Cross section and microstructure of the welds corresponding to different arc modes: (a) Standard mode; (b) Pulsed mode; (c) CMT mode; (d) enlarged view of the
region d presented in (a); (e) enlarged view of the region e presented in (b); (f) enlarged view of the region f presented in (c).
Fig. 6. Lap shear strength of the joints welded with Standard, Pulsed and CMT
welding arc modes at the wfs 6.6 m/min.
to the relative lap shear strengths presented in Fig. 6, the gas pore
was located towards the center of the weld nugget which was not
the critical load bearing area. However, the partial tearing from the
notch root, refer to Fig. 5(a) and (b), reduced the load bearing area
of the lap shear coupon, contributing to the relative values of lap
shear strength. As there is no partial tearing resulting from the CMT
arc mode, this weld has the largest load bearing section and cor-
responding highest lap shear strength. The Standard weld mode
exhibited partial tearing but had significantly larger weld nugget
diameter as measured at the faying surface compared to the Pulsed
mode weld thus, the Pulsed mode weld exhibited the lowest lap
shear strengths. Consequently, the CMT mode was adopted for fur-
ther study of aluminum to aluminum arc spot welding process in
the following studies.
3.2. Welding mode development
Using the CMT arc mode, the first spot welding mode investi-
gated was the DW mode, refer to Fig. 3(a). The morphologies and
microstructure of a representative weld using the DW mode, at
a welding time of 0.7 s are presented in Fig. 7. As can be seen in
Fig. 7(a) and (b), the weld appears circular and symmetrical due to
the burning arc position being fixed at the weld center. As can be
seen from the cross section of the weld, the weld metal in the upper
aluminum sheet was much wider than that in the lower sheet, refer
to Fig. 7(b), due to a greater heat transfer rate laterally through the
top sheet than vertically across the faying interface and into the
bottom sheet. This led to a bowl-shaped heat input distribution
and resulted in a weld pool with a portion of the upper weld metal
not fusing with the lower aluminum substrate at an incomplete
fusion interface, refer to Fig. 7(c).
Fig. 8 shows the effect of four different welding modes, i.e., DW,
PW, DWB and PWB on the weld geometry as a function of welding
time. Obviously, all the welds can be generally described as having
three critical diameters in the weld nugget zone, i.e., D1 in the top
sheet, D2 at the boundary of incomplete fusion interface and D3 in
the bottom sheet, refer to Fig. 8(a). The average dimensions of D1,
D2, D3 for the four welding modes at different welding time were
measured and the results were shown in Fig. 9. As can be seen for
all four welding modes, the diameter D1 was far larger than D3 at
the bottom surface of the bottom sheet. Furthermore, the diameter
D2 of the coalescence interface of the two sheets is nearly equal to
D3.
As can be seen in Fig. 8(a), the DW concavity in the weld center
was severe due to the welding arc pressure and down flow of the
filler metal at a welding time of 0.7 s. As the welding time increased,
refer to Fig. 9, the diameter of the weld, in particular D2, increased
and the concavity in the weld center was nearly eliminated due to
the greater heat input and volume of filler metal. At the welding
time of 1.1 s, refer to Fig. 8(a), partial tearing occurred at the fay-
ing interface due to the increased thermal induced stress caused by
the larger heat input, hence, the D2 was redefined as the bound-
ary between the partial tearing at both sides. The sagging under
the weld bottom, i.e. convexity, protruded significantly due to the
melting of the lower sheet.
In order to avoid the heat input required to melt through the top
sheet, a pre-drilled hole with a diameter of 6.5 mm in the top sheet
was introduced so that a greater proportion of the energy input
could be utilized to widen the faying interface of the two sheets as
a means to improve mechanical performance.
Cross-sectioned PW mode welds, refer to Fig. 3(b), at welding
times of 0.7, 0.9 and 1.1 s are presented in Fig. 8(b). Obviously, the
predrilled hole caused much more severe sagging, i.e. convexity,
to an extent of one and three quarters of the sheet thickness com-
pared with DW mode, and the reinforcement of the weld was nearly
zero, since the welding heat acted directly onto the bottom sheet
through the predrilled hole. Severe partial tearing in the upper
sheet occurred starting at the faying surface near the fusion line
 H. Lei et al. / Journal of Manufacturing Processes 28 (2017) 209–219 213

Fig. 7. Weld appearances and cross-sectioned welds in DW mode at a welding time of 0.7 s: (a) top and bottom weld morphologies, (b) cross section of the weld, (c)
microstructure of the weld notch root.

of the weld in contrast to the other three modes. We attribute this
phenomenon to tearing of the weld metal caused by the massive
fallen weld metal in the lower sheet during solidification and the
tensile stress resulted by the surrounding aluminum base metal.
Therefore, as shown in Figs. 8 (b) and 9 (b), the dimension of D2
for PW mode is also defined in accordance with the partial tearing,
and became much smaller compared with DW mode.
The welding defect like partial tearing was severe for PW mode
and the sagging, i.e. convexity, under the bottom sheet of the weld
was extremely large for the modes of DW and PW, leading to unac-
ceptable quality in production. Therefore, a chill block under the
bottom sheet was employed to prevent the down flow of the weld
pool at elevated temperatures.
Cross-sectioned welds of DWB, refer to Fig. 3(c), at welding
times of 0.7, 0.9 and 1.1 s are presented in Fig. 8(c). Under DWB
mode, there was no obvious welding defect and sagging on the
weld bottom, moreover, the reinforcement of the weld was the
largest. Based upon a comparison of the D2 dimension for DW
and DWB modes, it can be concluded that application of the chill
block prevented the collapse of the welding pool under the lower
sheet leading to a wider faying interface between the top and bot-
tom aluminum sheets which is beneficial to the joint mechanical
property.
As can be seen in Fig. 8(b) and (d), PWB mode welds, refer to
Fig. 3(d), have less partial tearing welding defects compared to PW
mode welds, refer to Fig. 3(b). This is attributed to the chill block
at the bottom preventing the falling/sagging of molten weld metal
in PW mode welds. However, the D2 dimension of the PWB weld is
the smallest among the four spot welding modes, refer to Fig. 9(b),
which could be explained by the fact that the melted filler metal
and bottom sheet experienced large cooling rates because of the
copper chill block which significantly restrained the heat transfer

Fig. 8. Cross-sectioned welds with four welding modes at the welding time of 0.7 s, 0.9 s and 1.1 s: (a) DW mode, (b) PW mode, (c) DWB mode and (d) PWB mode.
214 H. Lei et al. / Journal of Manufacturing Processes 28 (2017) 209–219
Fig. 9. Three dimensions of the welds with four welding modes at different welding times: (a) D1, (b) D2, (c) D3.
within the lower sheet during welding, leading to a smaller weld
diameter at the faying interface. In contrast to PWB mode welds, the
D2 dimension of the DWB mode welds was larger, refer to Fig. 9(b),
since the cooling effect caused by the chill block was less significant
as more welding heat input was consumed to melt the top sheet
aluminum which was not present for the plug welding case.
Comparing the cross-sectioned welds fabricated from the four
spot welding modes, the chill block under the bottom sheet effec-
tively prevented liquid aluminum alloy from sagging down during
welding, hence, the tendency of welding defects like partial tearing
caused by the tearing of fallen metal were greatly inhibited.
3.3. Effect of heat input on microhardness profiles and
microstructure
6061-T6 Al-Mg-Si alloy is a heat treatable alloy which exhibits
weldability problems such as softening phenomenon in the HAZ
[17]. Therefore, microhardness analysis of the joint welded with
DW mode at the welding time of 0.9 s was conducted in order to
study the effect of welding heat input on the joint. The upper and
lower sheets were tested respectively along the center line of the
sheet thickness as illustrated in Fig. 10. Half of the hardness dis-
tribution across the weld diameter in the upper and lower sheets
was tested assuming symmetry of the weld, and a 0.5 mm spacing
was used between hardness measurements starting from the weld
center to the aluminum substrate.
As can be seen, the microhardness variation in the upper and
lower sheets is similar and the hardness profile can be divided into
a few obvious areas. The hardness value of the aluminum substrate
is on average approximately 120 HV, and decreases significantly
in the HAZ, indicating a softening phenomenon in the aluminum
base metal caused by the welding thermal cycle. The drop of hard-
ness in the HAZ may be caused by the coarsening of ␤” phase and its
simultaneous transformation into ␤’ phase [18,19]. Since the weld-
ing heat input acted directly on top of the aluminum, the width of
HAZ in the upper sheet is approximately 6 mm which is wider than
the 5 mm width of HAZ in the lower sheet.
The hardness both in the HAZ of upper and lower sheets is
restored slightly as it approaches the weld metal near the fusion
line, because the solid solution hardening process of the ␤” and ␤’
phases enriched the solid solution of the aluminum matrix with
Si and Mg [19]. The hardness of the weld metal adjacent to the
HAZ continuously increased to more than 85 HV. In the center
of the weld, the hardness reaches a minimum value. Some alloy-
ing elements with higher solubility in the liquid phase versus the
solid phase, such as Mg and Si, may migrate from solid to liquid
phase in the partially melted zone, which indicates that the par-
tial melting area adjacent to the solidus may be depleted of Mg
during solidification [19]. The decrease of hardness may be caused
by the redistribution and loss of strengthening alloying elements
like Mg and Si in the weld metal [20]. The softening phenomenon
of the weld metal in the upper sheet is much more serious and is
attributed to a greater welding heat input.
The microhardness was also tested on the joints welded with
PW, DWB and PWB modes applying the same welding parameters
and resulting in the hardness distribution presented in Fig. 11. The
 H. Lei et al. / Journal of Manufacturing Processes 28 (2017) 209–219 215

Fig. 10. Microhardness analysis of the joint welded with DW mode.

Fig. 11. Microhardness profile of the joints welded with DW, PW, DWB and PWB modes.

Fig. 12. Microstructure of the weld bottom under the welding time of 0.9 s: (a) PW mode, (b) PWB mode.
216 H. Lei et al. / Journal of Manufacturing Processes 28 (2017) 209–219
Fig. 13. Joint strength as a function of welding time for four welding modes.
variability in the hardness profiles for the four welding modes are
comparable. For PW mode, the HAZ and fusion zone in the bot-
tom sheet is much wider than that of PWB mode as a result of
the directional chilling applied by the chill block under the bot-
tom sheet. The microstructure of the weld bottom was observed
by optical microscopy to investigate the influence of the high cool-
ing rate on the microstructure of the weld as shown in Fig. 12. The
grain structure of the PW mode weld bottom exhibited obvious
equiaxed grains versus directional grain growth emanating from
the chill block in the PWB mode weld. The chill block under the
bottom sheet accelerated the speed of solidification and cooling
at the weld pool bottom, and the large cooling rate and thermal
gradient assisted in the formation of columnar grains. The HAZ in
the bottom sheet for the mode of PWB also shrank considerably
compared with DWB mode since the arc heat acted directly on the
bottom sheet surface and the heat dissipation caused by the chill
block under the lower sheet was more notable.
3.4. Mechanical properties
The lap shear strength of the joints welded with four welding
modes at welding times of 0.7, 0.9 and 1.1 s are illustrated in Fig. 13
and three replicas were tested for each parameter combination.
For DW mode, the joint strength increased as the welding time
increased since the diameter of the weld faying interface, i.e., D2
refer to Fig. 9(b), increased as the heat input increased and addi-
tional filler metal poured into the weld pool. Similar joint strength
behavior can be observed with the DWB mode results, although the
Fig. 14. Weld nugget fracture initiation, propagation and final fracture morphologies of the welds under applied loads for: (a) DW welding mode and (b) PW welding mode.
joints are stronger than those of DW mode since the nugget size at
the faying interface is much larger, refer to Fig. 9(b). The amount of
scatter in the strength data is also reduced due to the elimination
of partial tearing welding defects with the application of the chill
block under the lower sheet.
The lap shear strengths of the PW mode joints, approximately
2 kN on average, are quite low compared with DW and DWB modes.
This can be explained by the severe partial tearing occurring along
the faying surface and then up into the welds which severely
reduces the load bearing cross section as well as introduces a
stress concentration point, refer to Figs. 8 and 9 (b). Moreover, the
strength as a function of welding times for the PW mode is fairly
consistent and any variation is attributed to the variation in weld
nugget size of D2, refer to Figs. 13 and 9 (b). For PWB mode, the
joint strength is also very low due to the small D2 size caused by
severe partial tearing, refer to Fig. 9(b), which overshadowed any
effect of welding time variation. In conclusion, welding with DWB
mode achieved nearly defect-free joints having the best mechanical
properties.
Although the use of the chill block significantly improved the
quality of the joints, a chill block in production is not desirable thus,
a further investigation into the DW and PW mode welds was under-
taken. Fig. 14 is a compilation of photos showing the interrupted
and fractured welds during lap shear tests. For cross-sectioned and
polished welds with both the DW and PW modes following inter-
rupted lap-shear testing, the crack initiated at the weld notch root
due to the stress concentration of the junction between the top
weld nugget and bottom weld nugget, refer to Fig. 14(a) and (b).
The fracture path was full nugget pullout from the top sheet and
partial pullout from the bottom sheet for the DW mode, refer to
Fig. 14(a), and was nugget pullout from the top sheet only for the
PW mode, refer to Fig. 14(b).
In order to investigate the relationship of crack initiation and
microstructure, the grain structure near the periphery of the faying
surface in the upper welds for DW and PW welding modes were
analyzed and the results are presented in Fig. 15. In Fig. 15(a). One
sees strongly columnar grains for the DW mode which grow from
the aluminum bottom sheet base metal and extend to the notch
root i.e. at the tip of the incomplete fusion interface, refer also to
Fig. 7(c), and in contrast for the PW mode, refer to Fig. 15(b), one
sees partial tearing emanating from the notch root into an area of
equiaxed grains. The presence of the partial tearing is the reason for
the significantly lower strengths observed for the PW mode joints
versus the DW mode joints, refer to Fig. 13.
For explaining the change in crack path for the DW and PW weld
modes under applied load, a schematic model of the crack initiation
 H. Lei et al. / Journal of Manufacturing Processes 28 (2017) 209–219 217

Fig. 15. The microstructures of the weld notch root along the crack propagation path of the weld metal under different welding modes: (a) for the DW mode one sees
columnar grains at the notch root (site of crack initiation) along which the crack propagated; (b) for the PW mode pre-existing partial tearing initiated the crack which
propagated in equiaxed grains.

Fig. 16. Crack initiation and propagation schematic model of a CMT Al-Al spot welds cross-section with DW and PW welding modes under applied load: (a) DW mode, (b)
PW mode.

Fig. 17. (a) Static load vs. displacement curve with schematic of fracture mechanism of the typical joints welded with DW and PW modes, (b) energy absorption of different
stages during lap shear test of DW and PW mode welds.

and propagation in relation to the weld nugget and joint geome-
try is presented in Fig. 16, which is then correlated to the static
load vs. displacement curves for each welding mode as presented
in Fig. 17(a).
As the load was applied for the DW mode joint, it initially
concentrated at the boundary of the weld/lower sheet, i.e., the
incomplete fusion interface, as shown in Fig. 16(a), where the
crack initiated at this location at approximately 3.3 kN. Upon fur-
ther extension of the load frame, the load actually dipped slightly
(orange section in Fig. 17 (a)) while the crack path took a significant
turn upward following along the columnar grain interfaces towards
the upper sheet surface. With the crack having extended through
the top sheet thickness, further loading resulted in propagation of
the crack around half the circumference of the weld nugget in the
218 H. Lei et al. / Journal of Manufacturing Processes 28 (2017) 209–219
top sheet, refer to solid blue section in Fig. 17(a). At this point, it
should be noted that the lap-shear coupon began to rotate which
affected the load and in fact, initiated a new crack opposite the
first crack though at the weld nugget/lower sheet interface. This is
seen in the inflection point between the end of the solid blue sec-
tion and the start of the dotted light blue section. Further loading
caused the crack to propagate around the weld nugget in the lower
sheet and the entire coupon and weld to bend once again causing a
new loading condition. At the last portion of the load-displacement
curve of DW mode weld, refer to solid black portion, the crack in the
top sheet continued around the weld nugget until full weld nugget
pullout in the top sheet and partial nugget pullout in the bottom
sheet, refer to Fig. 14(a).
The PW weld mode joint exhibited both lower strength and
energy absorption compared to the DW mode. From Fig. 17(a) one
can see that crack initiation occurred at only 1.8 kn. One can say that
there was already a pre-existing crack emanating from the notch
root in that there was partial tearing present, refer to Fig. 15(b),
as a result of solidification conditions during welding. Because of
this pre-existing crack the load to initiate its growth was less than
the DW mode. The slightly smaller “D2” diameter of the PW mode
also contributed to a smaller load bearing area compared to the
DW mode weld. However, similar to the DW mode, one sees a
slight drop in load immediately following initiation, refer to vio-
let colored section of PW load-displacement curve in Fig. 17(a),
which is related to the propagation of the crack through the top
sheet thickness. Then as the test continues, refer to grey portion
of the PW load-displacement curve, the crack quickly propagates
around the weld nugget in the top sheet resulting in relatively little
displacement or overall energy absorption.
The quantitative energy absorption of each fracture stages dur-
ing lap shear tests was calculated and shown in Fig. 17(b). The
energy absorption of DW mode during tension stage was almost
twice larger than PW mode due to its higher peak load. The crack
initiation stage in the upper weld of two welding modes had simi-
lar energy absorption. The PW mode weld fractured completely in
the upper weld, which is smaller and thinner than DW mode weld,
resulting in much smaller energy absorption. However, when the
PW mode weld completely fractured, the DW mode weld could
continue absorb energy through tearing the bottom sheet, thus the
total energy absorption of fracture propagation stage of DW mode
weld was much larger.
For all four welding modes, direct welding on the top aluminum
with chill block at the bottom, i.e. DWB mode, could increase the
weld nugget size in the interface and prevent the downflow of the
weld metal which could cause the partial tearing at the notch root
for DW mode weld. Therefore, the lap shear strength of the joints
fabricated with the chill block were significantly larger with greater
energy absorption compared to not using a chill block. This greater
strength and energy absorption were achieved by tearing of the
weld nugget and bottom aluminum sheet under applied load cre-
ating what is commonly known as button pull-out. However, for
cases where a chill block is not practical/feasible, the DW mode
would be the best choice in terms of strength, energy absorption,
and process cost.
4. Conclusions
CMT spot welding process of 1 mm-thick AA6061-T6 to 1 mm-
thick AA6061-T6 was developed. Three welding arc modes:
Standard, Pulsed and CMT and four different welding modes, i.e.,
direct welding (DW), plug welding (PW), direct welding on a chill
block (DWB) and plug welding on a chill block (PWB), were inves-
tigated and compared in terms of joint geometries, micro hardness
and microstructure, and mechanical properties. The following con-
clusions can be drawn:
(1) CMT arc mode produced welds having the fewest welding
defects, such as gas pore and partial tearing, leading to welds
having the best mechanical properties amongst those welding
arc modes and material stack-up investigated.
(2) Within the CMT welding arc mode, the application of the direct
welding with block (DWB) mode achieved the largest weld
nugget diameter at the faying interface and welding defects
such as partial tearing were eliminated, therefore, the best
strength and toughness of the four welding modes could be
achieved at the welding time of 0.9 s.
(3) Welding with chill block under the bottom sheet could prevent
the downflow of the weld metal, accelerate the heat dissipation
at the weld bottom and thereby narrow the HAZ in the bottom
sheet.
(4) For DW, DWB and PWB mode welds, the crack initiated at the
notch root of the weld under the applied load and propagated
along columnar grains through the thickness of the weld nugget
in the top sheet, moreover, tearing of the weld nugget also
occurred from the bottom sheet which acted to increase the
energy absorption of the weld. Welding defects such as par-
tial tearing inhibited achieving optimal welds with the plug
welding, i.e. PW, mode.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support
of GM-Research and Development Center, National Natural Sci-
ence Foundation of China (Grant Nos. U1564204, 51322504 and
51421092), and the Program of Introducing Talents of Discipline to
Universities of China (Grant No. B06012). The authors would also
like to thank Zeyu Wei and Haochen Wang for their help in the
experiments.
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