Journal of Manufacturing Processes 64 (2021) 948–959

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Journal of Manufacturing Processes

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Improving mechanical properties and electrode life for joining aluminum

alloys with innovatively designated Newton ring electrode
Mingfeng Li a, b, Yanjun Wang a, Shanglu Yang a, c, *, Wu Tao a, Guotao Zhang a
a
Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201800, PR China
b
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, PR China
c
Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, PR China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Aluminum alloys are critical lightweight materials in the automotive industry, which can significantly reduce
Resistance spot welding vehicle weight and improve vehicle fuel efficiency. However, resistance spot welding, as one of key joining
Newton ring electrode approaches, faces the challenges of short electrode life and unstable weld quality when welding aluminum alloy.
Aluminum alloys
A novel electrode named as Newton Ring (NTR) electrode was developed to address these issues. The mechanical
Electrode life
Mechanical properties
property, nugget evolution and electrode degradation during continuous welding of aluminum alloy with NTR
electrode were investigated and compared with the typical spherical electrode. Results indicate that the me­
chanical property, electrode life and surface quality of the weld fabricated by NTR electrode were much better
than typical one. The improvement in the weld quality with NTR electrode stems from its unique surface
morphology, which changes the current density distribution during welding and creates a ring-shaped nucleation
process of the nugget. Therefore, the shape and size of the nugget are more stable, and the nugget does not cause
serious offset in the continuous welding test. Additionally, the wear of the NTR electrode gradually grows from
concentric rings to the base ring, avoiding the random and rapid wear on the electrode weld face, thus improving
the surface quality of the weld.

1. Introduction
Reports showed that 10 % reduction in car body weight would in­
crease fuel economy by 6~8 % and reduce CO2 emission by 8% [1].
Using lightweight materials to partially replace conventional steels is
one of the most effective methods to reduce vehicle weight [2–4]. As one
of key lightweight materials, aluminum alloy has attracted much
attention from the automotive industry due to its excellent character­
istics, e.g., high specific strength, low density, and excellent corrosion
resistance [5,6]. By replacing steel component in body-in-white (BIW)
with aluminum component, around 40 ~ 60 % of BIW weight could be
saved [7,8].
Resistance spot welding (RSW) is the most important joining process
for manufacturing the BIW due to its excellent advantages, e.g., low cost
and high manufacturing flexibility [9]. Around 3000~5000 spot welds
can be found in the conventional steel-dominated BIW [10,11]. Usually,
several hundreds of RSW steel welds can be produced by RSW without
electrode redressing [12]. However, it face a big challenge to join
aluminum alloys. RSW of aluminum alloys usually requires high welding
current and short welding time together with large clamping force
because of their high thermal expansion coefficient, low electrical
resistance and high thermal conductivity [13,14], which requires more
superior welding equipment. In addition, the one of biggest challenge is
rapid wear of the electrode, resulted from the uneven and insulating
aluminum oxide film on the surface of aluminum alloy that produces
excessive resistance heat and alloys with copper electrode during RSW
process. Rapid wear of the electrode not only leads to poor surface
quality of the welds, but also results in the unstable weld performance
[7,15]. Therefore, the electrode is needed to be frequently dressed
during RSW in order to ensure the weld quality. Frequent redressing
extremely lowers production efficiency, increases manufacturing costs
[16], and limits the application of the RSW process in joining aluminum
alloy.
In the past, many efforts have been made in order to improve the
electrode life and the weld quality consistency, which are summarized as
follows:

* Corresponding author at: Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201800, PR China.
E-mail address: yangshanglu_lab@126.com (S. Yang).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmapro.2021.02.001
Received 10 November 2020; Received in revised form 5 February 2021; Accepted 5 February 2021
Available online 26 February 2021
1526-6125/© 2021 The Society of Manufacturing Engineers. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
M. Li et al.
(i) Clean aluminum oxide film or the electrode surface. Removing
the oxide film on the surface of aluminum sheet is the most
effective way to avoid rapid electrode wear. Li et al. [17] reported
that when resistance spot welding of 5A02 alloy, using chemical
cleaning of aluminum oxide prior to welding can significantly
improve the electrode life by nearly 10 times and the weld
quality. However, oxide film removal increases manufacturing
complexity and cost. Moreover, the contact resistance between
the aluminum sheets without the aluminum oxide film is too low
to be conducive to start the weld nucleation [18]. Periodic
cleaning of the electrode surface can effectively remove the
aluminum deposition on the electrode surface and improve the
contact state between the electrode and aluminum sheets,
thereby consistently obtaining a stable and high-quality weld
[19,20]. The negative effect of frequent cleaning of the electrode
is the lower productivity.
(ii) Designate the electrode chemical composition. Varying the
elemental composition of copper alloys and adding dispersion
strengthening materials such as carbon nanotubes, nanoparticles
(TiC, TiB2, Al2O3, etc.) can improve the properties (hardness and
compression. etc.) of copper alloys, thereby increasing the copper
electrode life. Xu et al. [21] found that adding Ag element to
Cu-Cr alloy significantly improves the microhardness of the
copper alloy without affecting its electrical conductivity, which is
expected to increase the wear resistance of the electrode. How­
ever, an ideal electrode for RSW of aluminum alloys requires that
the electrode has high thermal conductivity and high hardness,
low electrical resistance, and alloying propensity as well as low
manufacturing cost. Adding the other materials into the electrode
not only increases manufacturing complexity but also the
manufacturing cost.
(iii) Improve the welding equipment. The process tape is introduced
through a special welding gun to separate the electrode from the
workpiece and form a consistent contact state between the elec­
trode and workpiece for each of the weld, thus improving the
electrode life and weld quality [22,23]. However, the introduc­
tion of the process tape into RSW process not only dramatically
increases manufacturing complexity and cost but also limits its
application.
(iv) Design special electrode structure. The special electrode
morphology can change thermal state, electrical contact resis­
tance, and force coupling, thus changing the electrode life and the
weld mechanical properties. A Multi-Ring Domed (MRD) elec­
trode with multiple concentric rings on its end surface was
developed by General Motors and was used in mass production
[24,25]. The oxide film on the surface of aluminum sheet was
crushed by the taller rings and thus the contact resistance be­
tween the electrode and the aluminum sheet was lowered during
the welding process, resulting in higher electrode life compared
to the typical electrodes. It can be seen that innovation in the
electrode structure is a low-cost and effective method to improve
the electrode life. Therefore, we have developed a new electrode
named Newton’s ring (NTR) [26]. The main difference between
MRD electrode and NTR electrode lies on the electrode surface
topography and the melting mechanism during RSW process. The
former set concentric rings on the dome electrode surface, while
the latter set concentric rings on a large radius electrode surface.
Furthermore, RSW process with NTR electrode melts the
aluminum alloys from the weld periphery toward the weld center
and the RSW process with MRD melts the aluminum alloys in the
opposite way. There have limited reports about using concave
electrodes in steel RSW. Kim et al. [27] used a deep hollow
electrode to RSW advance high strength steels. Chen et al. [28]
used a slightly concave electrodes to weld Q&P1180 steel. In our
previous work [29], the NTR electrode with a concavity was
applied to resistance spot weld aluminum and experimental
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Journal of Manufacturing Processes 64 (2021) 948–959
results suggested that NTR electrode can significantly increase
the mechanical properties of the joint and avoid the nugget
expulsion. However, the robustness of the NTR electrode and the
weld performance in continuous aluminum spot welding have not
been studied.
In this work, the NTR electrode morphology was further redesigned,
optimized, and applied to continuously weld AA6016-T4 aluminum
sheet for the electrode life test. The weld mechanical properties were
also evaluated and the wear mechanism of two types of the electrodes
were investigated.
2. Experimental setup
2.1. Electrode
Fig. 1 showed the morphologies of the typical electrode and the
newly-developed NTR electrode used in this work. The typical electrode
(designed as ‘R100’) was spherical ball-nose shape with a radius of 100
mm and a 10 mm diameter of the end face, refer to Fig. 1a. The NTR
electrode has much different face morphology from the typical one. It
can be seen from Fig. 1b that the most prominent feature of the NTR
electrode is the presence of a concavity on the weld face. Therefore, a
large convex ring (called as a base ring, represented by R0) is naturally
formed around the concave, and two concentric rings (called R1 and R2,
respectively) are fabricated on the R0, refer to Fig.1b. The R100 and NTR
electrodes were both made of chromium-zirconium-copper alloy.
2.2. Materials
The material used in this study was 1.6 mm thick AA6016-T4 Al alloy
with a non-passivated surface. The tensile strength and yield strength of
the aluminum sheet were 220 MPa and 110 MPa, respectively. Its main
chemical composition is Al-1.1Si-0.2Fe-0.1Cu-0.15Mn-0.4 Mg (wt. %).
2.3. RSW processing and sample fabrication
The schematic of RSW arrangement using a medium-frequency
direct current (MFDC) welding system is illustrated in Fig. 2a. This
welding system is composed of SIV37 controller, OBARA welding gun
and FANUC robot. In the welding process, a large amount of resistance
heat is generated in the welding zone to realize metal melting and
bonding. According to Joule’s law, the total resistance heat can be
calculated as [30]:
∫t
Qtotal = I 2 (RWW + 2REW + 2RW )dt
0
where Qtotal is the total resistance heat; t is the welding time; I is the
welding current, RWW, REW and RW are the contact resistance between
the workpiece, the contact resistance between the electrode and the
workpiece and the bulk resistance of the base metal, respectively.
Among them, I, RWW, REW and RW are all functions of time.
All the welding experiments were conducted with the same welding
schedule for each weld as shown in Fig. 2b. The flow rate and temper­
ature of the cooling water were kept at 4 L/min and 20 ℃, respectively.
All the aluminum sheets used for the electrode life tests were cut into
rectangular coupon with the size of 500 × 50 mm, while those for lap-
shear were cut into 127 × 38.1 mm, as shown in Fig. 3a and b. Prior
to welding, all the aluminum sheets and the electrode surface were
cleaned using acetone in order to remove the oil and contaminants. In
the continuous welding test of the electrode life, the distance between
two welds was set as 35 mm to avoid the shunting effect [31,32],
referred to Fig. 3a. Three tensile shear (TS) coupons were fabricated (i.
e., measuring the welds with the numbers 1–3, 31–33, 61–63, etc.),
respectively, to evaluate the mechanical properties of the welds. It is
M. Li et al. Journal of Manufacturing Processes 64 (2021) 948–959

Fig. 1. Top view, cross-sectional view and sizes of the electrodes used in this study: (a) R100, (b) NTR.

Fig. 2. Experimental setup and welding schedule: (a) schematic of resistant spot welding (RSW), (b) welding schedule.

Fig. 3. Schematic of test sample size and experimental processes: (a) the coupon size used for electrode life test; (b) tensile shear test size; (c) the processes for
producing the samples of tensile shear test/electrode life test/microstructure study.

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worth noting that the welds used in the tensile shear test was manu­ experiments, the scanning step is 0.02◦ and the speed is 0.2 s per step.
factured with same welding parameters in different groups as shown in
Fig. 3c. 3. Results

3.1. Mechanical properties and the weld diameter of the welds

2.4. Mechanical tests and microstructure observation
Fig. 5 shows variation of tensile shear (TS) peak load and the nugget
At present, the degradation level of the shear strength and the weld
diameters of the joints manufactured by different electrodes. Here, the
nugget diameter are usually used as a standard to evaluate the electrode
nugget diameter was measured from the fully interface fractured joint.
life. Rashid et al. [15] and Lum et al. [20] defined the electrode life
For the number 1–30 welds obtained by R100 electrode, the TS load
termination when the shear strength is lower than 80 % of the initial
shows an upward trend. When the weld number is large than 30, the TS
weld. Li et al. [17] delimits the electrode life as the weld nugget size is
load of the welds begins to decrease and then fluctuate due to the
less than 3.5√δ (where δ is the thickness of the workpiece), and JIS Z
electrode rapid degradation by alloying with aluminum. At the same
3140 specified that the minimum nugget diameter of aluminum RSW is
time, the nugget diameter also similar to the TS load fluctuation after the
2.8√δ to 5.0√δ [33]. In this work, the nugget size less than 5√δ (6.32
welds is larger than 90. Therefore, the nugget diameter has a strong
mm) is defined as the end of the electrode life. The average size of the
relationship with the TS load of the joint (see Fig. 5). Generally, the
nugget buttons was obtained by measuring the peeled continuous welds
larger nugget size was, the stronger weld was [34]. However, the TS load
and was used as the primary index to assess the electrode life. Two
of the number 210 weld does not increase significantly although it has a
typical fracture modes and their measurement techniques are shown in
larger nugget diameter. The reason is attributed to rather non-uniform
Fig. 4. The mechanical properties of the welded joints were tested using
weld shape caused by the electrode alloying with aluminum i.e.
electrical universal testing machine (UTM5015) with a speed of 3
mm/min. For the tensile shear tests, a rectangular shim with 38.1 × 35 ×
1.6 mm were placed at both ends of the coupon to minimize additional
bending, referred to Fig. 2b. To analyze the microstructure of the welded
joints, the samples along the cross-sectional direction and at the faying
interface were wire cut and layer-by-layer machined until the interface
of two aluminum sheets. After standard grinding and polishing pro­
cedures, the Keller’s reagent (95 mL H2O, 2.5 mL HNO3, 1.5 mL HCl and
1.0 mL HF) was used to etch the samples. The VHX-6000 ultra-depth
metallurgical microscope was used to observe the weld macrostructure.
Furthermore, the nugget angle is measured and the penetration of the
longitudinal nugget is observed. The penetration (A) can be calculated
using the formula A=h / δ, where h is the thickness of the nugget on one
side (see Fig. 4c). The tescan vega compact scanning electron micro­
scope (SEM) equipped with energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDS) was
used to observe microstructure and measure the element distribution,
the accelerated voltage used in this study was 10 kV. The BRUKER D8
Fig. 5. The relationship between TS load and nugget diameter and weld
Advance X-ray diffraction is used to analyze the phase formed on the
number for R100 and NTR electrodes.
weld face of the electrode. When performing the X-ray diffraction

Fig. 4. (a) and (b) are the schematic of the button pullout fracture and the interface fracture of weld, respectively, (c) is the schematic of a typical nugget shape, and
(d) and (e) are the technique for measuring the weld button of button pullout fracture and the nugget of interface fracture, respectively.

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defined as electrode severe wear.
The TS load of the welds obtained by NTR electrode is firstly notable
increased, then subsequently decreased as welds increased, corre­
sponding to the variation of the nugget diameter. At the welds equal to
60th, the TS load of the weld reached its maximum value equal to 4778
N, which higher by 13.7 % than that of the welds with maximum load
achieved by the R100 electrodes. Compared to the typical welds, the
better mechanical properties of the weld obtained by the NTR electrode
can be attributed to the increased nugget diameter.
3.2. Nugget profile
Fig. 6 showed the transverse morphology of the nugget made by two
kinds of electrodes. It can be seen that the nugget profile of the welds
with R100 was close to a circle when the weld number were less than 60.
However, the nugget profile changes from an ellipse to an irregular
shape when the weld number increases to 210. It is apparent that the
nugget profile varies as the weld number. The more welds are produced,
the severe the electrode wear, resulting in a significant change in the
nugget shape to an unpredictable shape. Contrarily, the weld profile
with the NTR electrode were still remained nearly circular even though
the NTR electrode has produced 210 welds.
The longitudinal morphology of the welds with typical and NTR
electrodes are given in Fig. 7. The evolution trend shows that with the
increase of weld number, the weld penetration first increases and then
decreases, especially in the weld made with NTR electrode. The first
nugget has small penetration, which is likely due to the newly replaced
electrode not reaching a stable contact state. At the weld number of 30,
the nugget made by R100 has over penetrated the upper surface of the
workpiece and reach its maximum penetration. The penetration of 120
weld was not markedly decreased, while the decrease in nugget diam­
eter was significant. This fact could be explained by uneven wear of the
electrode as discussed in the following section. It is worth noting that the
nugget diameter and the weld penetration of 210 weld become very
small, which can be explained by the less resistance heat generation to
promote nugget growth due to the serious wear of the electrode.
Moreover, the uneven wear of the electrode can also aggravates the
offset of the nugget on the faying surface, resulting in failing to show the
maximum nugget diameter when made the metallographic weld coupon
along the weld centerline.
For the nugget with NTR electrode, the weld penetration reached the
maximum value at 60 welds, which is delayed by 30 welds compared to
the maximum penetration of the R100 nugget. As the number of the
welds was further increased, the weld penetration with the NTR elec­
trode was dropped to the lowest level at the number 210 weld. In
addition, it can be seen from Fig. 7 that the nugget diameter with the
NTR electrode was gradually decreased. Although the weld penetration
and diameter with the NTR electrode regularly change with the increase
in the weld number, the weld profile always maintains a symmetrical
shape similar to "peanut". Moreover, there was no severe offset of the
nugget with the NTR electrode in the whole continuous welding testing.
3.3. Electrode life
The electrode life of two electrodes are given in Fig. 8. The R100
electrode is able to continuously weld around 150 welds, which has the
weld button diameter larger than 7 mm, referred to Fig. 8a. The button
has a relatively stable diameter (~8 mm) within 60 welds, and it
gradually scatters as the welds increase to 150. As the welds over 150,
the button diameter began to significantly decrease and the interfacial
fracture occurred in some welds. The ratio of the minimum diameter
(Dmin) to the maximum diameter (Dmax) was used to evaluate the weld
shape uniformity. The closer to 1 the ratio of Dmin to Dmax, the closer the
weld shape is to a circle. For R100 electrode, the ratio is relatively stable
when the welds is less than 90. However, the ratio started to fluctuate
and decrease as the weld number increased to 210, indicating that the
nugget shape was non-uniform and the weld property was not stable.
Contrarily, for NTR electrode the button size decreased linearly and
slowly as the welds increased, and there were no large fluctuations and
scatters. The average diameter of the buttons even exceeds 8 mm within
60 welds. After continuously welding 210 welds, the button size was still
larger than 7 mm, which well exceeds the level of the 5√δ = 6.32 mm,
referred to Fig. 8b. Moreover, maintaining a stable and sufficiently large
ratio (~ 0.94) of Dmin to Dmax indicates that the button shape is always
close to a circle in continuous welding, which help improve the better
weld mechanical properties than those using typical electrode. As a
result, all the welds achieved using the NTR electrodes fractured with
button pull-out mode.
3.4. Surface morphology of the welds and electrodes
The evolution of the weld and the electrode surface morphology over
time using two different electrodes in the continuous welding are pre­
sented in Fig. 9. As shown, a layer of contaminants was quickly produced
on the upper weld surface with R100 electrode and the contaminated
area was expanded due to rapid degradation of the electrode. This
contaminants were identified as the Al-Cu alloy and remelted aluminum
alloy deposited on the surface of the electrode and the weld [33],
resulting in a rough surface. Contrarily, the welds of NTR electrode
owned better surface appearance, i.e., only few and regular

Fig. 6. Changes of the transverse morphology of the nuggets over weld number that were produced by R100 and NTR electrodes, respectively.

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Fig. 7. Changes of the longitudinal morphology of the nuggets that were produced by R100 and NTR electrodes, respectively.
contamination are distributed on the surface of the weld. The alloying
layer was observed on the R1 and R2’s imprints of the weld surface at the
30 welds. As the welds increased to 60, the R1 and R2’s imprints were
gradually filled with rough alloying materials until it completely dis­
appeared. The two ring-shaped contaminants merged into one when
continuous welding to 210 welds. Although the contamination area
gradually grows, it still remained a fairly uniform ring distribution after
210 welds.
For the lower electrode and its weld surface, no obvious contami­
nations was observed in NTR electrode during the whole welding pro­
cess. Especially, two rings of NTR electrode were still completely and
clearly seen on the weld surface after manufacturing 210 welds. Peltier
effect [35] indicates that the heat generation in the negative electrode
contact surface is far less than that in the positive electrode during direct
current RSW process. Therefore, severe alloying and pitting were mainly
observed in the positive electrode and the upper surface of the weld due
to excessive heating. However, the weld face of the negative electrode is
also covered with a layer of silver-color material as the weld increases,
which is due to the weld face gradually picking up the aluminum
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Fig. 8. The average diameter of the nuggets
and ratio of Dmin to Dmax in continuous welding
with different electrodes: (a) R100, (b) NTR.
The red circle, black square and pink prism in
the figure represent the diameter of the button,
diameter of nuggets with interface fracture and
the ratio of the minimum diameter to maximum
diameter, respectively; The blue horizontal
reference line is 5√δ (6.32 mm) (For interpre­
tation of the references to colour in this figure
legend, the reader is referred to the web version
of this article).
material after repeatedly touching the workpiece. In the next section,
only the upper electrode will be discussed because its wear rate is much
faster than the lower one.
4. Discussion
4.1. Nugget evolution in continuous welding
As discussed in section 3.1, the electrode degradation has a great
influence on the nugget quality, e.g., the size, shape and mechanical
properties. The size and penetration of the nugget gradually increase,
progressively improving the TS load as the weld increased to 30. This is
because of the increasing pitting and aluminum adhesion on the elec­
trode surface can promote the increase of contact resistance between
electrode and the workpiece, thus generating more resistance heat for
the nugget nucleation and growth. In addition, it slows down the
resistance heat loss from the nugget to the electrode through heat con­
duction [36].
With the increase in the weld number, the decrease in nugget
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Fig. 9. Variations in surface morphology of the welds and the electrodes in continuous welding.

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diameter and weld penetration with the R100 electrode can be attrib­
uted to the fact that the electrode periphery is pushed to contact with the
workpiece in order to withstand the electrode axial force after the for­
mation of cavity or flattening in the central region of the electrode,
increasing the contact area of the faying interface. Therefore, the
welding current density is inevitably decreased, resulting in less resis­
tance heat generated for the formation of nugget [37,38]. Another
common phenomenon, the nugget offset, is also easy to occur in the
continuous welding with R100 electrodes, which also reduces the size
and performance of the nugget. A typical non-symmetrical nugget is
presented in Fig. 10. During the welding process, the electrode force and
welding current are concentrated near the location-A of the electrode
right side after left side was severely worn, which accelerates the nugget
on the right side to rapidly grow until the nugget penetrates close to the
upper surface of the workpiece as shown in Fig.10b. Therefore, the
nugget penetration on the left side did not grow sufficiently due to the
generation of low resistance heat, which causes great difference in the
nugget angle of the faying surface (see Fig. 10a) and greatly reduces the
nugget size and mechanical properties. Furthermore, the concentrated
distribution of the welding current also accelerates the wear of the
electrode. The local grain boundary is melt and Cu element infiltration
can be found near location A (see Fig. 10c, d and e). These facts prove
that excessive resistance heat and severe electrode wear were generated
in this area.
The RSW process with NTR electrode has a completely different
nucleation mechanism compared with R100 electrode. For NTR elec­
trode, the nugget evolution is outer-toward-center instead of center-
toward-out [29,31], as shown in Fig. 11. During squeeze time, the
electrode force was distributed to the workpiece through the R0 and the
concave area in the center of the NTR electrode still not touches the
workpiece. Therefore, a ring-shaped area with a good contact state was
formed on the electrode/workpiece (E/W) and workpiece/workpiece
(W/W). The welding current is highly concentrated on the R0 ring area,
which corresponds to the highly concentrated ring current on the W/W
interface. As heating up rapidly, a ring-shaped nugget preferentially
forms at the W/W interface (see Fig. 11a). Since the heat in the NTR
center is locked by the high-temperature ring and cannot be dissipated
outwards, resulting in the accumulation of more heat in the central area
than in the peripheral area of the R0 ring. Therefore, the expansion speed
Fig. 10. Non-symmetrical nugget produced with R100 electrode: (a) a typical offset nugget, (b) schematic illustration of offset nugget formation, (c) and (d) are the
microstructures of location A and box D at different magnification, respectively, (e) elemental distribution of Cu in (d).
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of the annular nugget toward the center is much faster than that to the
outside, causing the center area of the ring to quickly be melt, connected
together (see Fig. 11b and c), and eventually expanded into a plump
nugget (see Fig.11d).
The smaller contact area between the NTR electrode and the work­
pieces leads to the concentrated welding current density on the R0 ring
area, which results in remarkable thermal accumulation effect. In
addition, the nugget grows in a ring shape, which provides priority to
ensure the formation of a larger nugget than that with the R100 elec­
trode. Therefore, better mechanical properties of the weld were ach­
ieved by NTR electrode. It should be noted that although the contact
area between the E/W has increased after the aluminum touches the
concavity of the electrode, the current density of annular distribution
and the effect of concentrated heating still exist. This is because with the
softening of the weld surface and the slight deepening of the electrode
imprint, the R0 area between the electrode pairs is still the shortest
current path.
The maximum weld penetration of the NTR nugget is delayed by 30
welds compared to the typical electrodes in the continuous welding (see
Fig. 7), which is attributed to the lower contact resistance and slower
electrode degradation rate of the NTR electrode. The reason for the
decrease in penetration of subsequent nugget is due to the complete
degradation of R1 and R2, which leads to gradual increase of contact
resistance at the E/W interface and acceleration of electrode wear, thus
reducing the current density. Nevertheless, throughout the continuous
welding process, nugget offset and rapid reduction of nugget diameter
are avoided owing to the annular nucleation mechanism of the NTR
electrode, which also ensures the stability of the nugget shape and
mechanical properties.
4.2. Electrode wear process
4.2.1. Wear mechanism of electrode
Fig. 12 showed the morphology of the Al-Cu layer and EDS and XRD
analysis results at the pitting ring after the NTR electrode completing
210 welds. An continuous alloy layer with a thickness of around 7 μm
was formed on the surface of the pitting ring, as illustrated in Fig. 12a
and b. Amounts of Cu and Al were observed in the alloy layer (Fig. 12c),
indicated that the layer on the end surface of the electrode was Al-Cu
M. Li et al. Journal of Manufacturing Processes 64 (2021) 948–959

Fig. 11. The evolution of the nugget over time during resistance spot welding with NTR electrode: (a) welding time is 60 ms, (b) welding time is 70 ms, (c) welding
time is 80 ms, and d) welding time is 120 ms, respectively.

Fig. 12. Result of the micro-structure and element distribution and composition analysis of NTR electrode after 210 welds: (a) macroscopic distribution of alloy layer
in box 1, (b) microstructure of alloy layer in box 2, (c) results of EDS line scan, (d) results of XRD-diffractometer scan in box 1.

compounds. XRD analysis results (Fig. 12d) further showed that the was much larger than the Al-Cu eutectic reaction temperature (~821 k)
CuAl2 and Cu9Al4 phases exist on the alloy layer. It was reported that the [39]. Therefore, the molten Al quickly adheres and diffuses to the
temperature of the local contact point in E/W during welding was even electrode surface and triggers the Al-Cu eutectic reaction to form a
exceeding 1000 K due to the excessive contact resistance [14], which brittle intermetallic compound layer. After finishing a welding cycle, the

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electrodes were separated from the Al sheets and hence the brittle Al-Cu
compounds were torn apart, resulting in the residual Al-Cu compounds
or the cavities on the end surface of the electrodes, and thus largely
shorten the electrode life [30].
4.2.2. Wear process of R100 electrode
Alloying and pitting occurred quickly with R100 electrode. Fig. 13
presented the surface of R100 electrode after the 1st weld. As shown in
Fig13a, large cavities and dense pits were observed on the electrode
surface. Moreover, many granular structures and plane of brittle fracture
(e.g., flat surface without deformation) were observed on the pits and
cavity, respectively (see Fig. 13b and c). The EDS analysis result showed
that the atomic content of Al and Cu was closer to the composition ratio
of the CuAl2 (see Fig. 13d), suggesting that alloying may have occurred
at the first weld.
The typical electrode usually has only a small area of physical con­
tact due to the non-uniformity of the oxide film [7]. Although the local
oxide film will be broken by the electrode weld face with roughness
under the action of the electrode force, the broken oxide film will remain
in original place and prevent the electrode from establishing large-area
metal-to-metal contact with the substrate [40]. Therefore, the large and
uneven contact resistance leads to excessive resistance heat at the E/W
during the Al RSW, which promoted the rapid formation of alloying and
the development of a large number of pits. In addition, the electrode
picks up the Al alloy simultaneously with the increase of the number of
welds under repeated thermal and mechanical impact [20]. Due to
gradual deterioration of the contact state between E/W, the degradation
of the electrode was rapidly intensified and became unmanageable.
Therefore, alloying, pitting and pick-up material may occurred in early
welds or even in the first weld, and there was a mutually reinforcing
relationship.
A large number of pitting pits and cavity quickly grow up and merge
with each other as the welds increases, which all increase the contact
resistance of the next weld. Therefore, the rapid wear and cavitation of
the electrode surface further intensified, which enters a vicious circle.
Fig. 13. The surface pitting and EDS spot scanning results of the first weld produced by R100 electrode: (a) macroscopic distribution of the pitting in box 1, (b) and
(c) are the microstructure of pitting and cavity in box 2 and box 3, respectively, (d) result of EDS spot scan at spot 1, 2 and 3.
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Journal of Manufacturing Processes 64 (2021) 948–959
Furthermore, when installing the electrode, it is difficult to completely
align the upper electrode to the lower electrode and slight misalignment
would cause the concentrated pressure and current density in some
certain directions, accelerating the wear of R100 electrodes, resulting in
the poor surface quality of welds and the short electrode life.
4.2.3. Wear process of NTR electrode
To better understand the wear mechanism of the NTR electrode, it
was divided into two parts, the first is R1 and R2 wear, and then R0. The
R1 and R2 wear process was given in Fig. 14a to d. As showed, an imprint
beyond the thickness of the oxide film (A typical thickness is nanoscale
[14]) on the Al sheet can be produced after R1 squeezing (Fig. 14a). As a
result, the continuous oxide film was cut by R1 and establishes stable
metal-to-metal contact with the base metal (Fig. 14e), thereby obtaining
a lower and more stable contact resistance, which plays an important
role in delaying electrode wear. The microstructure at the bottom of the
R1 imprint in Fig. 14f show some broken surfaces due to R1 squeezes, but
there are still many intact surfaces with high resistance. In addition, R1
is also the concentrated channel of current (Fig. 11). Therefore, the local
melting and alloying occur first between the R1 and the substrate due to
excessive resistance heat, refer to Fig. 14b. When welding the next po­
sition, the pitting process was re-conducted, accelerating the wear and
advance gradually toward the R0 direction as shown in Fig. 14c, and
finally form two pitting rings (see Fig. 14d). Therefore, it can be
concluded that R1 and R2 are the key to delaying electrode degradation
in early welds. Importantly, it can induce pitting to be evenly distributed
in a ring shape on the R0, which avoids the random pitting and uneven
deterioration at the electrode (see Fig. 9).
The R0 wear process was schematically presented in Fig. 15a to d.
The pitting ring with a certain depth cannot establish good contact with
the workpiece surface in the squeezing process, refer to Fig. 15a. How­
ever, the edge area of the pitting ring is the area where the current
density and resistance heat are concentrated. This is because the stress
concentration causes more serious deformation and micro-slip on the
aluminum surface at this area, which helps to break the oxide film and
M. Li et al. Journal of Manufacturing Processes 64 (2021) 948–959

Fig. 14. Schematic illustration of R1 and R2 areas degradation process of the NTR electrode in box 3 and surface morphologies of R1 imprint: (a) R1 penetrates the
surface of the workpiece, (b) the beginning of R1 wear, (c) R1 fades away, (d) formation of pitting rings, (e) the morphology of the Al alloy fresh substrate cut by R1 in
box 1, (f) surface micromorphology of Al alloy at the bottom of R1 indentation in box 2.

Fig. 15. Schematic illustration of R0 degradation process of the NTR electrode in box 1 and microstructures of Al alloy: (a) contact state near the pitting ring area, (b)
concentration of current density at the edge of pitting ring at the beginning of welding, (c) wear expansion of pitting ring, (d) pitting rings merge with each other, (e)
microstructure of Al alloy in box 2, (f) microstructure of Al alloy in box 3.

establish more metal contact, referred to Fig. 15b. Subsequently, as
illustrated in Fig. 15c, the Al alloy expanded rapidly and filled into the
pitting ring under the function of high temperature. When the temper­
ature is at the sub-solid temperature of the aluminum alloy, low melting
point impurities and secondary phases (e.g., Mg2Si) may melt and cause
local grain boundary melting and cracks [41,42]. The microstructure of
aluminum alloy in contact with the edge and the bottom of the pitting
ring in Fig. 15e-f shows the phenomenon of grain boundary melting in
addition to the formation of thick alloy layer on the surface, which
further confirmed that excessive resistance heat is generated at this re­
gion. Therefore, the heating concentration at the edge of the pitting ring
promotes its expansion and then merges into a large pitting ring (see
Fig. 15d). Since the inside and outside of the R0 were concavity and
curved surface with certain radians respectively (see Fig. 15d), this
limited the rapid aggression of the pitting ring to the entire electrode
surface. Therefore, the wear area of the upper electrode remains
ring-shaped after 210 welds and the wear area does not increase sharply,
which not only ensures the consistency of the surface morphology of the
welding spot but also improves the joint performance.
5. Conclusion
In this work, a novel Newton Ring (NTR) electrode and a typical
spherical (R100) electrode were used to weld AA6016-T4 Al alloy with a
thickness of 1.6 mm. The mechanical properties, the nugget shape and
wear process of the two different electrode in continuous welding were
compared. Furthermore, different wear mechanisms of two kinds of
electrodes were explored. The main results were summarized as follows:

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(1) The newly-developed NTR electrode can produce the welds with
higher tensile shear (TS) load during tensile shear test and has
longer electrode life compared to R100 electrode. These are due
to unique ring-shaped nucleation mechanism of NTR.
(2) Fast degradation rate in R100 electrode leads to a rough surface
morphology of the weld. It not only simultaneously causes the
nugget offset but also reduces and fluctuates the nugget size. As a
consequence, the weld mechanical properties were decreased and
fluctuated over time.
(3) The wear process of the NTR electrode can be effectively post­
poned because R1 and R2 can puncture the oxide film and reduce
the contact resistance. Furthermore, the presence of R1 and R2 in
NTR electrode forces pitting to form as a circle on base ring (R0),
and its expansion is simultaneously limited by the R0 structure,
which avoids rapid and random wear on the NTR electrode face.
Therefore, excellent weld surface quality was achieved in the
continuous welding process.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors report no declarations of interest.
Acknowledgment
This work was supported by the Chinese Academy of Sciences [NO.
292017312D1100301]; the Shanghai Municipal Economic and Infor­
matization Commission [NO. GYQJ-2019-1-33]; and the Science and
Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality [NO.
19XD1433500].
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