Rupture Modeling of Spot Welds under Dynamic Loading for Car Crash FE Analysis

The deformed shape obtained from car crash FE analysis without considering the rupture of spot welds does not always match with that of actual test if some of the spot welds rupture during crash test. Therefore, simulating the spot weld rupture and its propagation is important to obtain accurate results from car crash FE analysis. Also, dynamic effects have to be considered while modeling the rupture as spot welds are subjected to dynamic loading in a crash test. A method to measure the rupture loads of spot welds subjected to dynamic loading with greater accuracy has been developed. Also, a spot weld model to accurately predict these rupture loads has been developed. The developed spot weld model has been validated with a full car crash FE analysis. The results of FE analysis show a good correlation between predicted number and location of ruptured welds and those observed in crash test.