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Online Precision Measurement of Weld Indentation in Resistance Spot

Welding Using Servo Gun

Article  in  IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement · July 2020

DOI: 10.1109/TIM.2019.2943981

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Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement
Online Precision Measurement of Weld Indentation
in Resistance Spot Welding Using Servo Gun
Yu-Jun Xia, Ze-Wei Su, Ming Lou, Yong-Bing Li, Blair E. Carlson
Abstract—Resistance spot welding (RSW) is the dominant
joining method for steel auto body assembly. Significant effort has
been paid to control and inspect RSW quality in real time to
guarantee the security and reliability of body structure joints.
Among the various methods, monitoring of the surface
indentation is proven to be a promising method to actualize online
weld quality assessment. In this article, a new approach to online
measurement of indentation depth for RSW process using a servo
gun is proposed. The approach entails the development of a
modified measurement system to eliminate transmission error of
the toothed belt drive and compensate the deflection of the fixed
electrode arm, which enables precision measurement of the
electrode tip displacement (ETD). Furthermore, consideration is
given to explaining the downtrend of the displacement curve
during the hold time within the RSW process, and the indentation
depth at ambient temperature is finally estimated through curve
fitting and experimental correction. The experimental results
show that the error of indentation estimation could be limited to
±30 μm (±2σ) at a 95% confidence level, which far surpasses the
performance of the previous method. Based upon sensitivity
analysis, the precision is proved robust to different workpieces
ranging from low carbon steel to high strength steel.
Index Terms—Resistance spot welding (RSW), servo gun, weld
indentation, online measurement, weld quality inspection.
I. INTRODUCTION
The resistance spot welding (RSW) process is widely
applied to the assembly of thin-walled structures because of its
low cost and high efficiency. During the RSW process, two or
more metal sheets are clamped together by a pair of electrodes,
and the passage of large electric current heats up the workpiece
through the combined resistance of contact interfaces and bulk
resistance of the sheets according to Joule’s Law. After a
relatively short period of time, the metallic sheets are melted
locally to form a molten nugget at the faying interface and
thereby joining the stack-up [1-2]. Thus, the total resistance
between the two electrodes plays a significant role in weld
nugget growth, and is one of the most critical factors
influencing weld quality.
Nowadays, RSW is widely used for sheet metal assembly
in the automotive industry due to its merits, such as high speed
and great adaptability to automation [3]. Unfortunately, in
high-volume auto-body assembly lines, the welding condition
varies frequently and inevitably because of wear of the
machine parts and assembly deviations, i.e., electrode wear,
poor part fit-up, misaligned electrodes, shunting and edge
welding [4-5]. Once these issues occur, the initial contact
resistance and bulk resistance in the RSW process are
influenced, leading to considerable inconsistency in weld
quality and even weld defects [6]. Expulsion and undersized
weld are two of the most common welding problems in
automotive plants, which usually cause significant degradation
of weld strength and collision stability [7]. Since the auto-body
performance and reliability rely on weld quality, the quality
assessment of welds is critical and necessary for automotive
manufacturers.
Traditional manual means of RSW quality inspection
including chisel test and ultrasonic testing rarely meet the
current quality control demands on account of their
shortcomings: small sample, high cost, off-line, and low
reliability, which becomes an obstacle in the development of
intelligent manufacturing of auto body [ 8 ]. As a result,
non-destructive testing (NDT) methods, for online inspection
of 100% of the welds at the very moment when they are
produced, becomes imperative and has gained global attention.
To date, significant effort has been devoted to online weld
quality assessment for RSW process. A range of sensors have
been employed to collect signals that could indirectly reflect
weld quality such as dynamic resistance [9], electrode force
[10], electrode displacement [11], power factor [12], acoustic
emission [13], sonic emission [14] and so on. After analyzing
these signals, primary features, including average value, peak
value, increasing rate, curve length, the area enclosed by the
curve, etc., were extracted and compared with those of good
welds to estimate weld quality [15]. Generally, statistical and
machine learning algorithms were applied to construct the
prediction model or classifier between monitored features and
weld quality indicators [16]. Underlying problems remaining
in such methods are twofold: on the one hand, the selection of
signal features depends on empirical knowledge; on the other
hand, the relation between features and weld quality is
straightly treated as a nonlinear black-box system. Therefore,
the performance of the prediction model heavily relies on mass
training data labelled with weld quality. This usually
encounters issues such as over-fitting and dimension disaster in
practical applications [17].
Fig. 1. Examples of spot welded macro section [18]. (a) Undersized weld with
slight indentation. (b) Good weld with moderate indentation. (c) Overheated
weld with serve indentation and expulsion.
To avoid training trouble with machine learning
algorithms, a different approach to weld quality evaluation has
been adopted. In 1968, Wu [19] found that the electrodes
which were forced against the sheet metal would impress into
the metal when melting occurred, and this electrode movement
caused a surface indentation after the welding process. It was
put forward in his research that an indentation of 5% to 10% of
sheet thickness could guarantee weld strength. When expulsion
occurs, this ratio could easily exceed 10% and even reach 30%
[20]. However, an extremely severe indentation is not desired.
AWS D8.9M [21] specified that the surface indentation could
be used as a criterion for evaluating the weld quality, both
severe (> 30% of sheet thickness) and slight indentation
reflected the poor static strength of spot welds, as shown in Fig.
1. Thus, online monitoring of surface indentation became a
promising approach to actualizing online weld quality
assessment, and many efforts have been paid to realize a
precision measurement of weld indentation.
Bračun et al. [22] and Polajnar et al. [23] developed an
optical method based on laser profilometry to achieve online
three-dimensional (3D) measurement of surface indentation.
Various indentation shape features such as diameter, depth, and
volume were successfully estimated according to specific
image processing algorithms. But the measurement resolution
of the optical method was quite low (about 45 μm), and the
facility cost of such measurement system should be optimized.
Lai et al. [20] and Zhang et al. [24] proposed an online
measurement method to extract the indentation depth from the
servo encoder in a C-type servo gun. The difference between
the moving-electrode displacement at the beginning and end
time of the welding process was measured as an indicator of
the indentation depth. The weld lobe based on the indentation
was built and verified via benchmark experiments afterwards
to identify the standard range for good welds. However, the
measurement error under laboratory conditions could reach 80
μm, which is too large compared with the standard range (5%
~ 30% of sheet thickness). The poor accuracy would create an
error in weld quality judgment and lead to a high false-alarm
rate in practical applications.
Podržaj and Simončič [25-26] specified that the thermal
expansion of the electrodes would cause a discrepancy in the
displacement measurement throughout the heating and hold
period. They proposed an image-based technique to discard
this effect. Although the sensors might be intrusive to the
welding process, this method successfully addressed the
difficulties of high-precision measurement of weld indentation,
and reminded others about the measurement error during the
cooling stage.
Moreover, Karloff et al. [27-28] presented a series of
work on RSW quality assessment based on real-time ultrasonic
testing. The signal and image processing of successive A-scans
were used to inspect the surface indentation. It was found that
the temperature distribution in the workpiece during cooling
did not drastically vary from weld to weld, and the average
longitudinal wave velocity through the weld was nearly
constant. That enabled a strong linear correlation to be made
between the final sheet thickness and the time of flight (TOF)
of a pulse-echo at the point of nugget solidification. The
maximum error of indentation measurement was less than 1%
for 2 + 2 mm plates (about 40 μm).
Compared with Lai’s study, Karloff’s work obtained
better measurement accuracy because the contraction in the
cooling stage is partially taken into account. However, Lai’s
system is not intrusive to the welding process because the
signal is directly obtained from the servo encoder and no
additional apparatuses or sensors are required. Both
approaches have pros and cons. To realize the online
measurement in practical application, both precision and
interference issue should be taken into consideration. In this
article, a new approach of weld indentation online
measurement for RSW process using the servo gun is
presented. The effects of gun stiffness and cooling shrinkage
on the measurement results are systematically investigated to
improve measurement accuracy. Firstly, an
measurement system with deflection compensation
developed to obtain the actual displacement between two
electrodes. Then, the behavior of the displacement curve in the
cooling stage is studied and fitted to calculate the indentation
depth at ambient temperature. Finally, the sensitivity of hold
time to measurement error is analyzed to test whether the
method proposed herein could meet the requirement for
practical application.
II. PRINCIPLES OF MEASUREMENT
A. Displacement Measurement of Moving Electrode
Fig. 2 (a) shows a C-type servo gun apparatus for
resistance spot welding. The whole weld gun is made up of
several parts including: gun frame, servomotor, servo cylinder,
transformer, copper cables, electrodes and electrode arms. The
moving electrode is driven by a servomotor to generate
continuous welding pressure in the welding
Considering the feedback characteristics of the servo system,
the displacement of the moving electrode can be directly
extracted from the servo encoder of the servomotor, avoiding
the interference with surrounding fixtures and workpieces.
improved However, one defect of such measurement method is its
is poor accuracy. As shown in Fig. 2 (b), the servo cylinder
serves as a transmission between the servomotor and the
moving electrode, and it consists of a toothed belt, a ball screw
and a pilot sleeve. Apparent transmission errors could be
brought in due to the gap between the ball screw and the
backlash of the toothed belt in the servo gun system. The
former mainly depends on machining accuracy and can be
generally regarded as time invariant. But the latter would
gradually increase during prolonged use as a result of aging
and belt slack, which accounts for most of the transmission
error. The total measurement error caused by these factors
could reach 80 μm [20].
In the present study, an additional incremental rotary
encoder is installed to the end of the servo cylinder through an
extension spindle to improve the measurement accuracy (see
Fig. 2). As the rotary encoder is directly connected to the screw
rod of the servo cylinder, the transmission error caused by the
process. toothed belt drive could be eliminated. Thus, the measurement
accuracy only relies on machining precision of the ball screw
and the property of the rotary encoder. The ball screw lead Lb
of the servo gun is 20 mm, and the resolution of the incremental
rotary encoder Re is 32768 pulses per revolution (PPR).
Therefore, the relationship between rotary encoder pulse N and
moving-electrode displacement Dm can be given by

N
Dm =  Ls = M e  N (1)
Re

where the measurement resolution Me = Lb / Re = 20 / 32768 =

0.610 μm/pulse. After the spot welding process, the number of
pulses N is extracted from the additional encoder, and then Dm
can be calculated by multiplying N and Me. The maximum
pitch error of the ball screw is ±0.05 mm over 300 mm length,
so the theoretical error of the proposed measurement method is
less than 0.610 / 2 + 0.05 ×103 / 300 = 0.472 μm per millimeter.
In order to calibrate the accuracy of the proposed method,
an OMRON ZX-LD30V laser displacement sensor with a
sensitivity of 0.25 μm was installed on the fixed electrode, and
a baffle board was mounted to the moving electrode. When the
distance between the laser sensor and the baffle board changes
with the movement of the moving electrode, the corresponding
output signal Ul from the laser sensor would vary from -5~5V.
The equation between Ul and Dm is

Dm = U l  M l (2)

where the measurement resolution Ml = 0.4 μm/μV. Fig. 3

shows the comparison between Dm values extracted from the
Fig. 2. Structure diagram of (a) the robotic servo gun and (b) the electrode additional rotary encoder and those measured synchronously
displacement measurement system.
through the laser sensor. The two types of measured Dm values
are essentially linear, and the coefficient of determination R2 is
very close to 1. The maximum difference between the two
values is within ±5.940 μm (±3σ) at the 99.7% confidence
level. Assuming the Dm measured by the laser sensor is the
actual value, the displacement measurement error of the
moving electrode at ambient temperature is less than ±6 μm.
displacement between the two electrodes, as well as the weld
indentation depth.
Fig. 4 shows the force and bending moment analysis of
the fixed electrode arm. The arm is simplified as consisting of
three parts, e.g., P1, P2 and P3, and each part is regarded as a
uniform cross-section beam. Therefore, the axial force Fx and
bending moment Mz is evenly distributed in the longitudinal
direction of part P3, and the longitudinal surface strain of part
P3 is nearly constant. According to elasticity theory, the
longitudinal surface strain ε3x and deflection Df of the fixed
electrode can be calculated as follows:

 F Fl2 w3
 3 x = EA − 2 EI =  F
 3 G3 (3)

 =  1 − l2 w3 
  
  EA3 2 EI G 3 

 F Fl23 F
 f
D = + + = F
Fig. 3. The measurement results of the moving-electrode displacement from  EA1 3EI 2 EA3 (4)
the laser sensor versus those from the additional rotary encoder. The moving
 3
  = 1 + l2 + 1
speed of the electrode was about 0.1 mm/s. 
 EA1 3EI 2 EA3

B. Displacement Measurement of Fixed Electrode

In a previous study, the indentation depth was calculated
only based on the displacement of the moving electrode [20].
However, this might not work well for a C-type servo gun. The
fixed electrode arm of the servo gun can be assumed to be
equivalent to a cantilever beam with limited stiffness, thus
non-negligible deflection can occur to the fixed electrode arm
during the RSW process [29]. Therefore, the displacement of
not only the moving electrode but also the fixed electrode
should be taken into consideration to obtain the actual axial
where F is the electrode force, E refers to the elastic modulus
of the beam, A1 and A3 are the cross-sectional areas of part G1
and G3, l2 is the length of part G2, w3 is the width or diameter
of the cross section of part G3, I2 and I3 are the cross-sectional
moments of inertia of part G2 and part G3, respectively. γ and
λ are the proportionality coefficients between ε3x and F, Df and
F, respectively. They can be regarded as indicators of gun
stiffness. Apparently, both ε3x and Df are proportional to F.
Therefore, there should be a linear relation between Df and ε3x.
Once ε3x is known, Df can be calculated based on ε3x, γ and λ.

Fig. 4. Force and bending moment acted on the fixed electrode arm of the servo gun in welding. Fx, Fsx and Mz represent axial force, shear force and bending
moment, respectively.

In this article, a surface strain sensor is mounted on the is far away from the electrodes so that the sensor is not
surface of the fixed electrode arm to measure the intrusive to the welding process. The measuring principle of
force-proportional strain ε3x (see Fig. 2). The installation place the surface strain sensor is as follows. The sensor enclosure
serves as an elastic transmission element and converts the n n n
change in surface strain into an internal force. Then the internal n Dm ,i 3 x ,i − ( Dm ,i )(  3 x ,i )

piezoelectric elements subjected to shear strain produce an  i =1 i =1 i =1
, i = 1, 2, ,10 (7)
 n n
electric charge Q (pC) proportional to the force. This electrical n D 2
m ,i − ( Dm ,i ) 2

i =1 i =1
charge is finally converted to a standard voltage signal U via a
charge amplifier. The sensitivity of the charge amplifier Ac is 1 Fig. 5 shows the result of the fast calibration of gun
mV/pc, and the resolution of the surface strain sensor Rs is 80 stiffness. Each point stands for a measured data pair (Dm,i, ε3x,i)
pC/με. Therefore, the relationship between U and ε3x should be at one specific electrode force in the range of 0.5~5 kN. The
measured Dm exhibits an obvious linear relation with ε3x, and
Q U
 3x = = = M sU (5) the coefficient of determination R2 is nearly 1, indicating that
Rs Ac Rs
the fixed-electrode displacement can be indirectly measured
where the measurement resolution Ms = 1 / (AcRs) = 1 / (80×1) = using a strain sensor mounted on the surface of the fixed
0.0125 mV/με. Substituting equations (3) and (4) into (5), the electrode arm. According to the fitting statistic, the estimated λ
equation between U and Df could be given by / γ is approximately 5.155 μm/με, and the Root Mean Square
  Error (RMSE) is 0.912 μm. Hence the estimation error of the
Df =  3 x = M sU (6)
  fixed-electrode displacement at room temperature is less than
±2.74 μm (±3σ) at the 99.7% confidence level.
C. Fast Calibration of Gun Stiffness

In equation (6), the coefficient γ and λ are essential factors

to measure Df. However, the formulas to calculate them are
highly complicated although the arm is simplified as a uniform
cross-section beam, as shown in (3) and (4). For a real fixed
electrode arm with a variable cross section, the calculation of
inertia I2 and I3 should be much more cumbersome, which
makes the accurate analytic calculation of γ and λ nearly
impossible.
In this study, a convenient method to acquire the factor λ /
γ, which is related to the gun stiffness, is put forward based on
regression analysis. When the moving electrode is driven by
Fig. 5. Fast calibration results of the stiffness of the servo gun.
the servomotor to close the gun, the two electrodes come into
contact with one another and apply an electrode force to the After calibration of the gun stiffness, it is possible to
axially opposing fixed electrode. In this case, Dm could be used measure Dm and Df synchronously in the welding process. As a
as the substitution for Df, which makes it possible to obtain Df result, the relative distance between the two electrodes could
and ε3x at the same time without any other sensors or devices. be easily calculated by
Once Df and ε3x are acquired, the factor λ / γ, which is the
coefficient between Df and ε3x, can be estimated via linear d (t ) = D f − Dm (8)

regression. where d(t) is the so-called electrode tip displacement (ETD)

The procedure of calibrating the gun stiffness is as
follows. Firstly, close the servo gun and let the electrodes
squeeze each other with different force Fi (i = 1, 2, …, 10).
Then, record the servo encoder pulse Ni and the corresponding
charge amplifier output Ui at different electrode force levels to
get a series of (Ni, Ui) data pairs, and transform them into (Dm,i,
ε3x,i) data pairs by equations (2) and (5). Finally, use the
method of least squares to approximate the factor λ / γ, as
shown in (7).
signal, which represents the sum of the time-variant thickness
of the workpiece stack-up and the thermal expansion of the
electrodes during the RSW process [26]. Substituting equations
(1) and (6) into (8), d(t) can be obtained as

d (t ) = M sU − M r N (9)

The equation above describes the measuring principle of
d(t) based on the output voltage U of the charge amplifier and
the servo encoder pulse N. Since the measurement error of the
moving-electrode displacement is within ±5.94 μm, the total
measurement error of the relative displacement between the
two electrodes at ambient temperature should be less than 5.94
+ 2.74 = 8.68 μm at the 99.7% confidence level.
D. Indentation Prediction at Ambient Temperature
Fig. 6 (a) shows a typical ETD signal during the welding
process. Its trend is demonstrated by the solid curve in Fig. 6
(b), which can be divided into four periods based on the curve
feature [30]. Period I is the squeezing stage when the electrodes
press the metal sheets and hold until the electrode force
becomes stable, so the ETD curve remains unchanged. In
period II, the electric current passes through the workpiece and
heats it up to form the weld nugget. The ETD signal rises
rapidly due to the thermal expansion of the sheets and the
electrodes, which is followed by a slow decrease once the
sheets begin to yield. Then in period III, the hold stage, the weld
current is shut off while the electrodes keep squeezing. The
forced cooling by the electrodes shrinks the workpiece, leading
to a continuous reduction in the curve. Finally, the gun is opened
in period IV. The electrodes move apart from each other, and the
distance between the two electrodes increases again.
Fig. 6. The typical electrode tip displacement (ETD) signal during RSW
process. The welded sheets were 0.8 + 0.8 mm bare DP590 steel sheets, the
welding current was 9 kA with a duration time of 300 ms, and the electrode
force was set to 2.6 kN. (a) Experimental data. (b) Schematic diagram.
In the previous study [20], the difference between d(t) at
the beginning of period II (point A) and the end of period III
(point C), i.e. d(A) – d(C), was used as an indicator of the
indentation depth. However, due to the limited hold time
(usually less than 500 ms), the weld is still at elevated
temperature (above 500ºC) when the gun starts to open [31].
The high-temperature metal would further cool down by
radiation and conduction in period IV, leading to a further
reduction in weld thickness. Unfortunately, the method above
ignores this cooling shrinkage and will bring about
considerable measurement error.
To improve the measurement accuracy, the effect of
cooling shrinkage in period IV should be considered. The
dashed curve dh(t) in Fig. 6 (b) is plotted to demonstrate a
possible trend of the ETD signal with an extremely long hold
time, and the curves dh(t) and d(t) overlap during period I~III.
Since the hold time is long enough, the weld thickness should
decrease continuously due to the temperature reduction in the
weld zone, as well as its rate of decline. When the weld cools
down to ambient temperature (point D), the rate of decline
should approach zero, and the weld thickness will remain
unchanged afterwards. Meanwhile, the heated electrodes will
also cool to room temperature and the thermal expansion of the
electrodes should recover. So dh(D) could be deemed as the
ultimate thickness of the workpiece, and the indentation depth
(δ) at room temperature could be calculated as follows:
 = d ( A) − d h ( D) (10)
Furthermore, the segment BD of dh(t) could be considered
as an extrapolation of the segment BC of d(t). Assuming there
exists a function g(t) which fits the data points in the segment
BC of d(t), then dh(D) can be approximated to the limit of g(t)
as t approaches infinity. Let the original thickness of the
workpiece d(A) = h. As long as an appropriate function g(t) is
found, the estimated indentation depth δ* can be given by:
 * = h − lim g (t ) (11)
t →
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
A. Experimental Conditions
The materials used in this work included 0.7 mm thick
bare BUSD sheet, 0.8 mm thick bare DP590 sheet, 1.0 mm
thick zinc-coated BLD sheet, 1.2 mm thick bare St37-2G sheet,
1.5 mm thick bare BUSD sheet and 1.6 mm thick zinc-coated
DP590 sheet. The zinc coating was between 100 and 140 g/m2
as measured. The chemical compositions of the sheets are
given in Table I. The RSW system consisted of a Medar 6000s
medium-frequency direct-current (MFDC) welding controller, spindle of the micrometer caliper were made dome-shaped to
a Fanuc R2000iB robot and an Obara C-type servo gun. Two minimize measurement error.
identical dome-shaped electrodes with 5.0 mm tip diameters
TABLE I
were used to carry out a series of spot welding experiments
CHEMICAL COMPOSITIONS OF APPLIED STEEL SHEETS (wt. %)
with different weld parameters, as listed in Table II.
Steel grade C Si Mn P S Alt
After the welding process, the surface indentation was
measured using a Mitutoyo digital micrometer caliper with an BUSD [32] ≤ 0.010 - ≤ 0.400 ≤ 0.025 ≤ 0.020 ≤ 0.015

accuracy of 3 μm. The measurement of each weld was repeated BLD [32] ≤ 0.080 - ≤ 0.45 ≤ 0.030 ≤ 0.025 ≤ 0.020

three times to obtain a representative average of the St37-2G 0.113 0.024 0.417 0.007 0.010 0.002

indentation depth. Furthermore, the tips of the anvil and DP590 0.180 0.216 1.643 0.011 0.021 0.037

TABLE II
WORKPIECES AND WELDING PARAMETERS OF THE EXPERIMENTS

Ultimate Weld Schedule

Thickness
Steel grade Surface State tensile strength Current Time Force Hold time
(mm)
(Mpa) (kA) (ms) (kN) (ms)
Stack-up 1 BUSD Bare ≥ 250 0.7 + 0.7 6.0 ~ 10.0 200 ~ 300 1.5 ~ 3.0 200
Stack-up 2 DP590 Bare ≥ 590 0.8 + 0.8 6.0 ~ 11.0 200 ~ 300 1.5 ~ 3.0 200
Stack-up 3 BLD Zinc-coated ≥ 270 1.0 + 1.0 7.0 ~ 11.0 200 ~ 300 2.0 ~ 3.0 200
Stack-up 4 St37-2G Bare ≥ 370 1.2 + 1.2 8.0 ~ 12.0 200 ~ 300 2.0 ~ 3.5 200
Stack-up 5 BUSD Bare ≥ 250 1.5 + 1.5 9.0 ~ 13.0 200 ~ 300 2.0 ~ 3.5 200
Stack-up 6 DP590 Zinc-coated ≥ 590 1.6 + 1.6 9.0 ~ 13.0 200 ~ 300 2.0 ~ 3.5 200

evident that exponential and arctangent functions exhibit a

B. Selection f the Fitting Function
better fit to the data than the others. The coefficient of
According to equation (11), g(t) should be a decreasing determination R2 and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of
function and the limit of g(t) as time t approaches infinity these two functions are comparable, but the operational speed
should be a constant. As a result, the functional equation of g(t) in a computer or microcontroller unit (MCU) of the
could be assumed as follows: exponential function is faster than that of the arctangent
function. Thus, the exponential function is selected for g(t).
a
g (t ) = +m (12)
f (t )

where a and m are undetermined coefficients, f (t) is called the

basic function and the limit value of 1/f (t) as time t approaches
infinity should equal to zero. Four types of elementary
functions are selected as the candidates of the basic function f
(t), and they are power, exponent, logarithm and arctangent
functions. Since 1 / f (∞) = 0, parameter m is just the limit value
of g(t), then equation (11) becomes

* = h − m (13)

A typical ETD curve of 1.2 mm + 1.2 mm bare St37-2G is

used to test the performance of the four functions with welding
current 10.0 kA, welding time 200 ms, electrode force 3.5 kN Fig. 7. Fitting results of the four types of functions to ETD data during period
III. (a) Power function. (b) Exponential function. (c) Logarithm function. (d)
and hold time 200 ms. Fig. 7 presents the fitting results of the
Arctangent function.
four functions to the displacement data in period III. It is
 Fig. 8 shows the predicted values of weld indentation
depth (δ*) and the measured ones (δ) for different workpiece
stack-ups. The dashed lines are linear regression curves whose
slopes are forced to be 1. The maximum RMSE of the
regression is 14.95 μm (see Table III), implying that the
measurement error of the indentation depth could be limited to
±30 μm (±2σ) at the 95% confidence level. The accuracy is
robust to different workpieces ranging from low carbon steel to
high strength steel. This result indicates that the exponential
function is adequate to describe the downtrend of the ETD
signal during the hold stage, i.e. the period III.

Fig. 8. Test of the indentation estimation of different workpiece stack-ups. The horizontal axis refers to the estimated indentation depth (δ*) while the vertical one
refers to the measured indentation depth (δ).

C. Correction of the Estimated Indentation

TABLE III
As can be observed in the graphs presented in Fig. 8,
RELATIONSHIP AMONG RMSE, SHEET THICKNESS AND BIAS
apparent intercepts are found in the regression equations,
implying that there is a bias between the online estimation (δ*) RMSE Thickness h Bias β0
β0 / h
and the actual measurement (δ) of the indentation depth. In the (μm) (mm) (μm)

previous study, only one kind of workpiece was studied, and Stack-up 1 9.59 1.4 84.1 0.0601

this bias was considered as a fixed systematic error of the Stack-up 2 10.13 1.6 86.8 0.0543

online measurement system [20]. However, in this work, Stack-up 3 7.09 2.0 115.2 0.0576

experiments of multiple workpieces (stack-ups 1 ~ 6) are Stack-up 4 11.63 2.4 142.6 0.0594

performed. The results show that the bias β0 increases as the Stack-up 5 14.93 3.0 178.7 0.0596

sheet thickness h increases, and the coefficient β0 / h is Stack-up 6 13.64 3.2 167.7 0.0524

approximately 0.05 ~ 0.06, as listed in Table III. This

relationship between h and β0 infers that the bias is not a
systematic error but rather a variable related to the sheet
thickness. Fortunately, based upon the current experiments, β0
remains almost unchanged for one specific workpiece under
different welding parameters. Thus, after a quick calibration of
β0 for a specific workpiece stack-up, the indentation depth can
be estimated by adding β0 to the calculated δ* term, i.e.
   * + 0 = h − m + 0
Further studies were pursued to investigate the cause of
the bias. Fig. 9 (a) shows the ETD curve of a weld with a 1000
ms hold time. The downward trend of the curve between 200 ~
700 ms is similar to the curve segment BC in Fig. 6 (a). Both
the curve value and its rate of decline decrease gradually with
time. However, for times greater than 700 ms, the rate of
decline gradually increases again resulting in another
downward trend. Accordingly, a distinct transition point E can
(14)
be found which divides the segment BC into two periods: III-a
and III-b. The fitted curve (exponential) matches well with the
data points in period III-a but deviates in period III-b. Hence,
the estimated indentation δ* (= h – m) will always be smaller
than the experimentally measured value.
Fig. 9. The electrode tip displacement (ETD) signal during RSW process with
a long hold time. The welded stack-up was 0.8 mm + 0.8 mm bare DP590 steel
sheets, and the hold time was set to 1000 ms. (a) Experimental data. (b)
Schematic diagram.
The dashed curve dh(t) displayed in Fig. 9 (b) refers to a
possible trend of ETD signal with an extraordinarily long hold
time. Similarly, point D represents the moment when the weld
and the electrodes cool down to ambient temperature and dh(D)
is the ultimate sheet thickness. The real indentation depth δ can
be obtained based on equation (10). Since the function g(t)
only fits data points of the curve segment BE, the estimated
indentation depth δ* approximates d(A) – dh(E), and the
difference between δ* and δ, i.e. the bias β0, can be given by
 0  d h ( D) − d h ( E )
As is well known, the cooling of liquid metals involves
three separate types of shrinkage, e.g., liquid contraction,
liquid-to-solid shrinkage, and solid contraction from elevated
temperature to ambient temperature. The amount of liquid
contraction is proportional to the reduction in temperature, as
well is the solid contraction. Liquid-to-solid shrinkage occurs
during the solidification, which is accompanied by large
quantities of heat release.
When the hold time in RSW is short, refer to Fig. 6 (b), a
large amount of liquid metal exists during the entire hold
period. The liquid contraction occupies the major part of the
shrinkage, resulting in a fast and continuous decline of d(t) in
period III. But when the hold time is sufficiently long, all of
the liquid metal should solidify and then cool to room
temperature during the hold stage, refer to Fig. 9 (b). The
declining rate of d(t) in period III-a gradually decreases
because of the heat released by the solidification and the
reduction of the liquid metal. As most of the molten metal
solidifies, solid contraction becomes the dominant reason for
the cooling shrinkage, corresponding to a recovery of the
declining rate of d(t) in period III-b. Therefore, the turning
point E on the curve segment BC, which divides the curve into
two parts due to different evolution trends, could be regarded
as the critical moment when most of the liquid metal has
solidified. Then the difference between dh(E) and dh(D), i.e. the
bias β0, should equal the amount of cooling shrinkage mainly
caused by solid contraction. Notice that the analysis is based
on the assumption that the cooling shrinkage of the electrodes
would not vary the downtrend of the electrode displacement.
More notable is that the amount of solid contraction △L is
proportional to the reduction in temperature, and the formula is
as follows:
L =  hT (16)
where α is the coefficient of thermal expansion, h is the total
thickness of the workpiece stack-up, and △T represents the
decrease of the temperature. The coefficient α of the steel can
be approximated as a constant from ambient temperature to
melting point. Meanwhile, △T during weld cooling,
specifically from the point of nugget solidification to room
temperature, does not drastically vary for similar materials and
workpiece thicknesses, refer to [27]. Based on this fact, △L
mainly relies on the thickness of the workpiece and should be
proportional to h. This might be the reason why β0 is positively
correlated with h (Table III).
(15) D. Influence of Hold Time on Measurement Precision
It is clear that hold time duration is an important
parameter for the proposed method. When the hold time
approaches zero, curve fitting of the function g(t) becomes
impossible. Several experiments were conducted to study the
influence of the hold time on the measurement accuracy of the
proposed method. The hold time was set to 100, 150, 200, 300,
500, 750 and 1000 ms, and other welding parameters were
chosen from Table II. After welding, the estimated indentation
depth δ* is calculated via the method mentioned above. Since
the segment EC is useless in the fitting of function g(t), as
shown in Fig. 9 (b), only data points in the period III-a are
used when the hold time is of sufficient duration.
is set to 200 ms, the maximum error could reach ±74 μm (±2σ)
at the 95% confidence level. This is attributed to the deflection
of the fixed electrode arm being ignored and only the
moving-electrode displacement is used to calculate the
indentation depth.

Fig. 10. The impact of hold time on the measurement precision of the
proposed method. The welded stack-up was 0.8 mm + 0.8 mm bare DP590
steel sheets, the welding current was set to 7 and 10 kA.

Fig. 10 highlights the impact of the hold time on the

Fig. 11 Indentation estimation of 0.8 mm + 0.8 mm bare DP590 steel sheets
RMSE of indentation estimation. There is an obvious
with various hold time using the method of ref [20]. (a) 100 ms. (b) 200 ms. (c)
downward trend of the RMSE value with increasing hold time.
300 ms. (d) 500 ms.
When the hold time is very short, the deviation between δ and
δ* + β0 is large (see the orange data points). As the hold time
Meanwhile, as shown in Fig. 12, the regression intercept
increases from 50 to 200 ms, the RMSE drops quickly from
β0 of the previous method significantly decreases with the
63.3 to 12.1 μm. When the hold time is longer than 200 ms, a
growth of the hold time, because the cooling shrinkage after
further reduction of RMSE could be achieved. Although the
the servo agun opens is neglected. A longer hold time will
RMSE value turns out to have a slight upward trend after the
result in a larger measured value of δ* although the true
hold time reaches 500 ms, it is still smaller than 12.1 μm,
indentation depth δ might change slightly. Thus, the bias
which indicates that the measurement error is limited to ±24.2
calibration should be repeated for each unique hold time. On
μm (±2σ) at the 95% confidence level (see the blue data
the contrary, the bias β0 of the new method remains around 86
points). In actual production, the duration of the hold time is
μm when the hold time ≥ 200 ms. Only one calibration is
rigidly restricted because a shorter hold time contributes to
necessary for a certain workpiece stack-up to guarantee the
improving the production cycle time. However, a hold time
measurement accuracy, which makes it more feasible to
longer than 200 ms is suggested to guarantee a good
implement the proposed method in production.
measurement precision of the proposed method. When the hold
time is set to 200 ms, the measurement error could be limited
to ±30 μm (±2σ) at the 95% confidence level, as shown in
Table III.

E. Comparison to the Previous Method

Aside from the study mentioned above, a comparative test

between the previous method [20] and the new approach was
performed. Fig. 11 shows the indentation measurement as a
Fig. 12 Comparison of measurement precision between the new method and
function of hold time using the previous method. The RMSE of
the previous method [20]. The welded stack-up was 0.8 mm + 0.8 mm bare
the previous method is much larger than that of the method
DP590 steel sheets. (a) Bias and (b) RMSE.
proposed in this paper (see Fig. 12). Even when the hold time
 IV. CONCLUSION
A new online measurement approach of weld surface
indentation for resistance spot welding using servo gun is
proposed and tested in this article. The measurement system is
modified based on the previous study and the effect of cooling
shrinkage is taken into account to improve the measurement
accuracy. From the experimental analysis above, the following
conclusions can be drawn:
(a) By eliminating the transmission error of the toothed belt
drive and compensating for the deflection of the fixed
electrode arm, the newly developed measurement system
of the electrode tip displacement shows good performance.
The measurement error at ambient temperature is less than
±8.68 μm at the 99.7% confidence level.
(b) An exponential function is proven adequate to explain the
downward trend of the electrode tip displacement signal
during the hold period. The difference between the
original sheet thickness and the limit of the function can
be marked as an indicator of the indentation depth at
ambient temperature. But there is a bias in the
measurement, which is found in positive relation to the
sheet thickness and is proven not to be a systematic error.
(c) The bias error is nearly unchanged for one specific
workpiece stack-up and could be easily compensated for
through an initial calibration. After calibration, the error of
indentation estimation could be limited to ±30 μm (±2σ) at
a 95% confidence level. The accuracy is robust to varying
steel sheets ranging from low carbon steel to high strength
steel.
(d) The duration of the hold time is a significant parameter
that influences the measurement precision. The accuracy
can be promoted by increasing the hold time. Considering
the production cycle time, a hold time longer than 200 ms
is suggested to guarantee a good measurement precision
for the proposed method.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to acknowledge the financial
support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China
(Grant Nos. U1564204 and U1764251), and the National Key
Research and Development Program of China (Grant No.
2016YFB0101606-08).
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Yu-Jun Xia received his M. Sc. degree from

Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China, in
2016. He is currently pursuing the Ph. D. degree
with the School of Mechanical Engineering,
Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
His current research interests include monitoring
and control of resistance spot welding process,
especially the online quality inspection.

Ze-Wei Su received his B. Sc. degree from

Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China,
in 2017. He is currently pursuing the M. Sc.
degree with the School of Mechanical
Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
His current research interests include monitoring
and control of resistance spot welding process,
especially the real-time expulsion control.

Ming Lou received his Ph. D. degree from

Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China,
in 2016. He is currently working in School of
Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong
University.
His current research interests include advanced
welding and joining processes development of
lightweight and dissimilar materials.

Yong-Bing Li received his Ph. D. degree from

Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, in
2005. He has been a professor with the School of
Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong
University since 2015.
His current research interests include advanced
welding and joining processes development of
lightweight and dissimilar materials, as well as
the monitoring and control of resistance spot
welding process.

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