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SAE TECHNICAL
PAPER SERIES 2001-01-0428

Spot Weld Failure Loads under Combined

Mode Loading Conditions
S.-H. Lin and J. Pan
The University of Michigan

S. Wu, T. Tyan and P. Wung

Ford Motor Company

Reprinted From: Fatigue and Failure of Spot Welds and Weld Joints
(SP–1621)

SAE 2001 World Congress

Detroit, Michigan
March 5-8, 2001

400 Commonwealth Drive, Warrendale, PA 15096-0001 U.S.A. Tel: (724) 776-4841 Fax: (724) 776-5760
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Spot Weld Failure Loads under Combined Mode
Loading Conditions
Copyright © 2001 Society of Automotive Engineers, Inc.
ABSTRACT
Failure loads of spot welds are investigated under static
and impact loading conditions. A test fixture was
designed and used to obtain maximum loads of spot
welds under a range of combined opening and shear
loads with different loading rates. Optical micrographs of
the cross sections of spot welds before and after failure
were obtained to understand the failure processes under
various loading rates and different combinations of loads.
The experimental results indicate that under nearly pure
opening loads, the failure occurs along the nugget
circumferential boundary. Under combined opening and
shear loading conditions, the failure starts from the
tensile side of the base metal near the nugget in a
necking/shear failure mode. The effects of sheet
thickness and combined load on the load carrying
behavior of spot welds are investigated under static and
impact loading conditions based on the experimental
results. An engineering failure criterion is proposed to
characterize the failure loads of spot welds under
combined opening and shear loads for both static and
impact loading conditions. The engineering failure
criterion is expressed as a function of the nugget size,
the sheet thickness, the loading angle for
characterization of combined loads, and an empirical
coefficient for a given loading rate.
INTRODUCTION
Resistance spot welding is one of the primary methods
to join sheet metals for automotive components. A
typical car or truck may have more than 2000 spot welds.
Accurate spot weld models are needed in the structural
integrity, durability, and crashworthiness analyses in the
early automotive design stages. The strength of spot
welds has been investigated, for example, in Sawhill and
Furr [1] and Ewing et al. [2] in terms of the specimen
geometry, welding parameter, base metal strength,
testing speed, and testing configuration.
Many research works have been conducted to explain
the fatigue and durability of spot welds in different types
2001-01-0428
S.-H. Lin and J. Pan
The University of Michigan
S. Wu, T. Tyan and P. Wung
Ford Motor Company
of specimens under various loading conditions, for
example, see Davison [3], Radaj [4], Swellam et al. [5],
and Wang and Ewing [6]. Since spot welds in
automotive components are subjected to complex
loading conditions, various types of specimens have
been considered to investigate the strength of spot welds
in these specimens for automotive applications.
VandenBossche [7] adopted a plasticity approach to
examine the strength of spot welds in lap-shear
specimens. Lee et al. [8] adopted a fracture mechanics
approach using the stress intensity factor K to model
their experimental results on the strength of spot welds in
U-tension specimens under combined tension and shear
loading conditions. Wung [9] and Wung et al. [10]
obtained and analyzed test results from lap shear, in-
plane rotation, coach peel, normal separation, and in-
plane shear tests, and proposed a failure criterion for
spot welds under combined loading conditions. Lin et al.
[11,12] obtained a lower bound limit load solution and
developed a failure criterion for spot welds in mild steel
specimens under static and impact combined loading
conditions based on their experimental results.
In this paper, we investigate the maximum load carrying
capacity of spot welds under combined opening and
shear loading conditions at various loading rates. In this
investigation, experiments of spot welds in mild steel
specimens with thicknesses of 1.0 mm and 1.5 mm were
conducted under various combined loads and loading
rates. Micrographs of spot welds before and after failure
were obtained to understand the failure processes under
different loading conditions. Micrographs of failed spot
welds under static and impact loading conditions were
compared. Experimental results were analyzed to
understand the effects of specimen size, nugget size,
combined load, and sheet thickness on the load carrying
capacity of spot welds. Finally, an engineering failure
criterion is proposed to characterize the load carrying
capacity of spot welds under combined opening and
shear loads for both static and impact loading conditions.
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EXPERIMENTS
In this investigation, spot welds in mild steel with the
thicknesses of 1.0 mm and 1.5 mm are considered. An
engineering stress-strain curve of the mild steel sheet at
the displacement rate of 1 mm per minute is shown in
Figure 1. For this sheet material, the 0.2% offset yield
strength is 184.6 MPa (26.78 ksi) and the ultimate tensile
strength is 302.3 MPa (43.84 ksi). In order to simulate
the load carrying behavior of spot welds under dominant
opening loading conditions in automotive panels, square-
cup specimens designed by Wung and Stewart [13] were
adopted. Figure 2 shows a failed specimen under pure
opening loading conditions with a nugget pullout shown.
The details and benefits of using square-cup specimens
were discussed by Lin et al. [11]. The welding schedule
of the spot welds is listed in Table 1.
3. The fixture set was cut from a rectangular tube with
an inclined angle φ as shown in Figure 4. The inclined
angle φ is equal to the loading angle φ , which represents
the angle between the load application line and the
centerline of specimens as shown in Figure 4. As shown
in the figure, the applied load P can be resolved into an
opening force N to open the crack around the nugget
circumference and a shear force S to shear the crack
around the nugget circumference (following the fracture
mechanics definition of “opening” for mode I and “shear”
for mode II and III). Note that shear force gives a
combined mode from mode II to mode III around the
crack front along the circumference of the nugget.

Figure 3. A test fixture for a loading angle of 45°.

Figure 1. A stress-strain curve for mild steel sheets.

Figure 2. A failed specimen under pure opening loading conditions

with a nugget pullout shown.

Thickness Minumum Nominal Weld Weld Weld

(mm) Nugget Nugget Time Current Force
Diameter Diameter (cycles) (kA) (kN)
(mm) (mm)
1.0 3.8 6.4 10 12.7 3.5
1.5 3.8 6.4 15 15.4 5.2
Figure 4. The resultant load P is applied to the specimen with the
Table 1: Sheet metal weld schedule loading angle φ. Here, N and S represent the opening and shear
loads, respectively.

Fixtures to impose combined opening and shear loads

For static tests, specimens and fixture sets were
on spot welds were designed by Lin et al. [11,12]. One
installed in a Tinius Olsen Universal Testing Machine (a
fixture set with a spot weld specimen is shown in Figure
vertical, mechanical screw driven machine). Then
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monotonically increasing displacements were applied at

the rate of 12.7 mm per minute. The load and
displacement histories were simultaneously recorded
during the testing. Tests were terminated until the two
components of the specimen were almost completely
separated.

For impact tests, square-cup specimens are mounted in

a test frame which was installed in a Bendix Impact
Machine (a horizontal gas driven machine). Figure 5
shows a specimen, a fixture, and a test frame were (a)
mounted on the track of a Bendix Impact Machine. In
the experiments, impact speeds of a projectile were set
at 5, 15, and 20 mph.

(b)

Figure 6. Side views of 1.5 mm specimens under static loading

conditions with different loading angles (a) 0° loading angle, (b) 45°
loading angle.

Figure 5. A specimen, a fixture and a test frame were mounted on the

track of a Bendix Impact Machine.

FAILURE MECHANISMS

After tests, failed specimens were examined. Figure 6

shows side views of failed 1.5 mm specimens under
static loading conditions with the loading angles of 0° and
45°. Arrows in the figure represent the loading
directions. Nugget pullout can be seen under pure
opening loading conditions (0° loading angle) in Figure
6(a). Weld nugget rotation can be seen under the
loading angle of 45° in Figure 6(b). In order to
understand the failure mechanisms of spot welds under Figure 7. A micrograph of the cross section of a specimen before
static and impact loading conditions, micrographs were testing. The weld nugget and base metal are all visible. The heat
taken from the cross sections of specimens containing affected zone is between the weld nugget and base metal.
spot welds. Since the failure mechanisms are very
similar for the specimens under impact speeds of 5 mph, Figure 8 shows a micrograph of a failed spot weld in a
15mph, or 20 mph, all the micrographs shown here are 1.0 mm specimen under opening static loading
cut from the failed specimens under the impact speed of conditions. The figure shows that the spot weld appears
15 mph. to fail mostly by the through thickness shear in the heat
affected zone. Only a small portion of the failed spot
Figure 7 shows a micrograph of the cross section of an weld appears to fail by tearing off the base metal and
undeformed spot weld from a 1.5 mm mild steel leaving a lip possibly due to slight misalignment during
specimen. Weld nugget, heat affected zone and base the test and non-homogeneous material properties
metal can be seen. The notch tips near the nugget around the weld nugget. Figure 9 shows a micrograph of
appear to be blunted with finite root radii. a failed spot weld in a 1.5 mm specimen under pure
opening static loading conditions. The figure shows that
the spot weld appears to fail only by the through
thickness shear in the heat affected zone. A similar
failure mechanism was also observed by Zuniga et al.
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[14] in coach peel specimens of HSLA steel under static
loading conditions.
Figure 8. A micrograph of the cross section of a failed 1.0 mm
specimen under pure opening static loading conditions.
Figure 9. A micrograph of the cross section of a failed 1.5 mm
specimen under pure opening static loading conditions.
Figure 10 shows a micrograph of a failed spot weld from
a 1.0 mm specimen under pure opening impact loading
conditions. The figure shows that the spot weld appears
to fail by necking/shear in the base metal near the
circumference of the weld nugget. It appears that the
high rate loading has somewhat changed the mode of
failure for spot welds in 1.0 mm specimens. Figure 11
shows a micrograph of a failed spot weld from a 1.5 mm
specimen under pure opening impact loading conditions.
The figure shows that the spot weld appears to fail by the
shear failure through the thickness in the heat affected
zone. The failure by shear through the thickness in the
heat affected zone is the same as that for 1.5 mm
specimens under pure opening static loading conditions.
Figure 10. A micrograph of the cross section of a failed 1.0 mm
specimen under pure opening loading conditions at a impact speed of
15 mph.
Figure 11. A micrograph of the cross section of a failed 1.5 mm
specimen under pure opening loading conditions at a impact speed of
15 mph.
Figure 12 shows a micrograph of the cross section of a
failed spot weld in a 1.0 mm specimen under static
loading conditions with a loading angle of 60°. As shown
in the figure, necking due to stretching appears in the
base metal near the heat affected zone in the left lower
leg. Therefore, it appears that the fracture was initiated
by necking/shear in the right upper leg at point A, as
marked in Figure 12. Then the failure propagates
around the circumference of the nugget (marked by B).
Finally, the sheet metal on the top part of the specimen
was torn off and left a lip (marked by D) on the spot weld
after the two square cups separated. Cracking at point C
in the heat affected zone was also shown. Figure 13
shows a micrograph of the cross section of a failed spot
weld in a 1.5 mm specimen under static loading
conditions with a loading angle of 60°. As shown in the
figure, the failure mechanism is the same as that shown
in Figure 12. A similar failure mechanism is also shown
in Zuniga et al. [14] for lap-shear specimens of HSLA
steel under static loading conditions.
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C A C

Figure 12. A micrograph of the cross section of a failed 1.0 mm Figure 14. A micrograph of the cross section of a failed 1.0 mm
specimen under static loading conditions with a loading angle of 60°. specimen under a loading angle of 60° at a impact speed of 15 mph.

Figure 13. A micrograph of the cross section of a failed 1.5 mm

specimen under static loading conditions with a loading angle of 60°.
Figure 14 shows a micrograph of the cross section of a
failed spot weld in a 1.0 mm specimen under impact
loading conditions with a loading angle of 60°. As shown
in figure, failure mechanism is very similar to that for spot
welds under static loading conditions. However, the final
fracture appears to occur near the heat affected zone
(marked by point C in Figure 14) without leaving a large
lip as shown in Figures 12 and 13. Figure 15 shows a
micrograph of the cross section of a failed spot weld
from a 1.5 mm specimen under impact loading
conditions with a loading angle of 60°. As shown in the
figure, the failure mechanism is very similar to that of the
failed spot weld in Figure 14. However, the failure
appears to start very close to the heat affected zone
(marked by point A in Figure 15), in contrast to the
necking/shear in the base metal as shown in Figure 13.
Figure 15. A micrograph of the cross section of a failed 1.5 mm
specimen under a loading angle of 60° at a impact speed of 15 mph.
PLASTIC LIMIT LOAD ANALYSIS
In general, a failure criterion for spot welds should
include the effects of loading condition, material property,
nugget diameter, material thickness, and welding
property, see Heuschkdel [15] and Sawhill et al. [1]. In
this paper, we focus on the effects of loading angle,
nugget radius, and sheet thickness. Lin et al. [11,12]
developed lower bound limit load solutions under pure
opening and combined loading conditions. Here is a
summary of the lower bound limit load solutions of Lin et
al. [11,12]. As shown in Figure 4, the applied load P can
be decomposed into an opening load N and a shear load
S. Therefore,
P= N 2 + S2 (1)

We can define the normalized opening and shear loads

N and S , respectively, as
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N A more general limit load solution can be obtained to

N= (2) characterize the maximum loads of spot welds under
2πrtτ 0
combined loading conditions with consideration of the
effects of specimen size, nugget radius, and sheet
S
S= (3) thickness for spot welds under pure opening loads.
2πrtτ 0 Here, we define the new normalized opening, shear, and
resultant loads by modifying Equations (2), (3), and (4)
where r is the radius of the weld nugget, t is the as
thickness of sheet metal, and τ 0 is the shear yield
strength. We can also define P as N  2 R − r 
2

Nn = 1 + 4 β    (8)
2πrtτ 0   t  
P
P= (4)
2πrtτ 0
S  2 R − r 
2

Sn = 1 + 4 β    (9)
Based on Equations (1), (2), and (3), Equation (4) can be 2πrtτ 0   t  
rewritten as

P = N2 +S2 (5) P  2 R − r 
2

Pn = 1 + 4 β    (10)
2πrtτ 0   t  
A lower bound limit load solution has been obtained by
Lin et al. [12] with consideration of the effects of
specimen size, nugget size, and sheet thickness for spot Note that
welds under pure opening loading conditions. The
opening load N can be written as Pn = N n2 + S n2 (11)

2πrtτ 0
N= (6) Therefore, Equation (7) can be combined with Equations
 2 R − r 
2
 (8) and (9) and rewritten as
 1 + 4 β   
  t  
 π 2 t2  2
N n2 +  + 2  S n = 1 (12)
where R is the equivalent radius for the square cup, and  12 r 
β is a small empirical constant determined by
experimental results as 0.00587 (Lin et al. [12]). Here R ENGINEERING FAILURE CRITERION
is determined as 19.05 mm for the specimens in the
experiments. Since β is very small, the contribution of In order to develop an engineering failure criterion for
bending moment to the stresses along the circumference spot welds under combined loading conditions, a fitting
of the weld nugget appears to be small and therefore is constant is introduced here to fit the experimental
neglected in the combined load investigation of Lin et al. results. Based on Equation (12), an engineering failure
[11]. criterion is proposed by including a fitting constant k as

A lower bound limit load solution has also been obtained  π 2 t2  2

N e2 + k  + 2  Se = 1 (13)
by Lin et al. [11] for spot welds under combined opening
 12 r 
and shear loading conditions where the bending around
the nugget circumference is neglected. The solution is
expressed as a simple closed-form equation as where

N
π 2 t2  2 Ne = (14)
N 2 +  + 2  S = 1 (7) Pmax (φ = 0°)
 12 r 
S
Equation (7) can characterize the failure loads of spot Se = (15)
welds with consideration of nugget radius, sheet Pmax (φ = 0°)
thickness, and loading angle for the characterization of
combined loading conditions. The limit load solution is in Here Pmax represents the average maximum load under
a quadratic form in terms of the normalized opening and pure opening loading conditions (0° loading angle) for the
shear loads. This limit load solution is adopted here as given sheet thickness and loading rate. Note that the
the basis to develop an engineering failure criterion for maximum loads obtained from experiments are
spot welds under combined loading conditions.
normalized by the average maximum load Pmax under
pure opening loading conditions for the given thickness
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and loading rate. The normalized maximum load can be
decomposed into the opening and shear components,
N e and Se . Based on the experimental results for 1.0
mm and 1.5 mm specimens under static loading
conditions, k is determined to be 1.29. Figure 16 shows
the normalized maximum loads in terms of N e and Se
from experiments under static loading conditions and the
failure contours based on Equation (13). As shown in
Figure 16, the experimental results can be fitted well by
the failure contours with the selection of k = 1.29.
Figure 16. Experimental results for spot welds under static loading
conditions and quadratic failure contours.
Figure 17 shows the normalized maximum loads in
terms of N e and Se from experiments under static
loading conditions and dynamic loading conditions with
impact speeds of 5, 15 and 20 mph. In order to fit the
data including those from the impact tests, k is selected
to be 1.19. The failure contours based on Equation (13)
with the selection of k = 1.19 are also plotted in Figure
17. As shown in the figure, the experimental results can
be fitted by the failure contours. Note that the maximum
loads obtained from experiments are normalized by the
average maximum load Pmax under pure opening loading
conditions for the given thickness and loading rate.
Therefore, the dependence of the maximum load on
loading rate may have been factored out substantially.
However, the experimental results shown in Figure 17
still have more scattering than that shown in Figure 16.
Finally, the failure load P under combined loading
conditions can be written based on Equations (8), (9),
(10), (11), and (13) as
cU 2πrtU
P=
R−r
2
  π 2 t2   2
1 + 4β 
2
 1 +  k  +  − 1 sin φ
 t   12 r 2  
   
where φ is the loading angle, U is the tensile strength of
the base metal, and cU is a fitting constant related to
loading rate, nugget radius, and welding process.
Figure 17. Experimental results for spot welds under static and
dynamics loading conditions and quadratic failure contours.
CONCLUSION
Failure loads of spot welds under combined opening and
shear loads are investigated under static and impact
loading conditions. Specially designed specimens and
fixtures were used in experiments to investigate the load
carrying capacity of spot welds under combined opening
and shear loading conditions. Micrographs of failed
specimens containing spot welds were examined to
understand the failure mechanisms of spot welds under
various loading conditions. Some differences of failure
mechanisms for spot welds under static and impact
loading conditions are shown. An engineering failure
criterion is proposed for spot welds under different
combined loading conditions with consideration of the
effects of specimen size, nugget radius, and sheet
thickness. For both static and impact loading conditions,
engineering failure load solutions are selected to be
quadratic in terms of the normalized opening and shear
loads. The dependence of the failure load on the nugget
radius and sheet thickness is expressed in terms of a
quadratic function of sheet thickness, nugget radius and
specimen size.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The support of this work for SHL and JP under a contract
from Ford Motor Company and a grant from Ford
University Research Program is greatly appreciated.
The contribution of Dennis Ojemudia of Ford Safety
(16) Laboratory to the experiments is also appreciated. In
addition, the fabrication of specimens at Ford Pilot Plant
and the use of experimental facility at Ford Research
Laboratory are appreciated.
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