Nonconventional Technologies Review 2014 Romanian Association of Nonconventional Technologies

Romania, June, 2014

QUALITY ANALYSIS OF THE ULTRASONIC WELDING PROCESS OF

AUTOMOTIVE ELECTRIC WIRES

Lăcrimioara Nică1, Dinu Gubencu2

1
”Politehnica” University of Timișoara, lacrimioaranica@yahoo.com
2
”Politehnica” University of Timișoara, dinu.gubencu@upt.ro

ABSTRACT: Technological processes involved in automotive industry must provide products conforming to the specifications, in
order to avoid failure of safety-related functions. This implies eliminating or diminishing errors and therefore achieving, for all
processes, the target of zero defects. As a consequence, it is very important to identify and apply different cost-effective quality
management methods to attain this objective. Thus, the paper presents the results obtained using the rank correlation method for
hierarchy the causes that influence the quality of the automotive electric wires produced by ultrasonic welding.
KEY WORDS: ultrasonic welding process, rank correlation method, quality management, root cause

The quality target for this process is zero defects

1. INTRODUCTION
In automotive industry, for achieving an electrically
functional overall system, the individual components
such as power generator, battery, consumer and
electrical and electronic display, control and
regulatory systems must be electrically connected to
one another. These are created by the cable harness.
In order to e.g. distribute power in the cable harness,
several individual wires must be connected to one
another. This connection can be created, among
other ways, through ultrasonic welded knots.
Table 1. Possible faults and consequences during ultrasonic welding of electric wires
Characteristic Fault Type
Too weak, strands inserted
Welded joint
incorrectly
Too weak, strands dirty before Welded knot tears or electrical
Welded joint
welding
Single strands pierce the
Insulation of welded knots
insulation
During ultrasonic welding, the wire strands from
several wires are connected to each other, producing
two types of welded knots: end or parallel splices.
The wires are stripped immediately prior to the
welding process and positioned manually in the
welding jig, where:
 the wire strands are pressed and compacted onto
one another by applying pressure
 after the oxidation coating is removed from the
wire strands by applying friction, the adjacent
strands of the single wires rub against one another,
making possible the welding of the contact surfaces.
On ultrasonic welding machines, an electrical
vibration is converted into a mechanical vibration
because some of the most important quality
characteristics are strictly related with wire welding
and any errors that may occur could generate fatal
consequences. Moreover, these faults (Table 1) may
remain undetected depending on their type and could
be passed on to the end customer [4]. So, it is
important to appeal to in-process approaches that
help to move the quality concept upstream from
final product inspection [1], based on the experience
of experts, without spending time and money.
Causes Possible Consequences
No connection at times
Important functions not
Welded knot tears
available, vehicle not
roadworthy
No connection at times
Important functions not
conductance too low available, vehicle not
roadworthy
Sudden failure of important
Short circuit
functions, risk of fire
with a frequency of 20-40 kHz. The frequency of 20
kHz permits the best possible use of energy. The
values of 35 or 40 kHz are suitable for welding
processes which require smaller amount of energy.
Ultrasonic systems are generally composed of the
following major elements: a generator, converter
with piezoelectric ceramics, booster, sonotrode,
pneumatic press and holding fixture, as seen in
Figure 1 [4], [5]. During ultrasonic welding, a
complex process is triggered, involving static forces,
oscillating shearing forces and a moderate
temperature increase in the welding area. The
magnitude of these factors depends on the thickness
of the workpieces, their surface structure, and their
mechanical properties.
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Piezoelectric materials used, located in the
converter, change their geometry through
application of an electrical field, which is used to
convert the electrical vibration into mechanical
Figure 1. Components of an ultrasonic welding machine
2. ANALYSIS OF THE CAUSES THAT
INFLUENCE THE QUALITY OF THE
WIRES ULTRASONIC WELDING
PROCESS
The causes and the corresponding faults types that
influence the quality of the ultrasonic welded joint
are the following:
 X1: Conformity of electrical wires
 The operators made a mistake when selecting
the wires, regarding their colour, dimensions
and/or number;
 Wires to be welded are deteriorated (dirty,
bended);
 Partial stripping caused by a too long storage
period;
 Partial insulation was removed too soon, not
just before delivering the wires to the
ultrasonic welding machine;
 Incomplete or bad removing of the insulation
from the part to be welded (Figure2);
a. unclean insulation cut
b. untidy cut
c. single strands cut-off short
Figure 2. Bad wire end
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vibration. Then, this vibration is stabilized by the
booster. Finally, the sonotrode achieves the desired
values of the movement amplitude and frequency.
 Materials used for both metallic conductor
and the insulation sleeve lying over it.
 X2: Welding parameters
 Wires diameters;
 Total diameter of wires per welded joint;
 Set time for welding;
 Compression height;
 Joint height;
 Power/energy consumed during the process.
 X3. Weld insulation mode
Welds must be insulated before being placed in the
wiring for preventing loss or interruption of the
signal. In order to attain this purpose the following
insulation materials are used:
 PVC and cloth tape;
 Insulation heads made of plastic in various
sizes and colours, having on the inside
several striations.
 X4: Wires insertion in the welding tool
In order to achieve the required quality of a welded
knot, it is essential that the conductor strands must
be bunched according to specifications and
positioned in the welding tool. In doing this, the
operators must take into account the:
 Position of the wire strands to each other –
because of the required knot geometry and
the knot strength (Figures 3 and 4)
Figure 3. Correct position of end splice

Figure 4. Correct position of parallel splice
 Position of the wire strands to the welding
tool – because of the knot strength
 The arrangement of the wire strands on the
sonotrode whilst taking into account the wire
and strand cross sections – due to the energy
transfer to the welded knot and the knot
strength
 X5: Type of welded knots
 End splices (Figure 5)
 Parallel splices (Figure 6)
Figure 5. End splice
Figure 6. Parallel splice
 X6: Joints inspections
The operator fulfils two categories of inspections:
a) On-process 100% measurement of variable
characteristics through ultrasonic welding
machine (Figure 7):
 Compressed size and weld size of the knot;
 Welding time and energy applied during the
welding process;
Figure 7. Integrated inspection equipment
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b) Visual, attributive characteristics – operator self
inspection of each weld:
 Knot geometry and version (e.g. no
protruding single strands);
 Knot discolouration and structure of the
surface;
 Condition of wire insulation;
 Strain relief of knot.
Also, Quality Department performs other
inspections of the variable characteristics by taking
random samples (Figure 8):
 Pull-off strength for parallel splices;
 The peel strength on end splices;
 Knot dimensional characteristics (height and
width)
Figure 8. Pull-off strengths gauge
 X7: Incorrect maintenance of the equipment
 X8: Teaching of the equipment
For welding machine monitor to show a difference
between bad and good welds, welding reference
must be saved in the system for each weld. This
process is known as Teaching and is updated by the
maintenance department. Only the best knots must
be saved as reference.
3. STEPS FOR APPLYING RANK
CORRELATION METHOD
It was appealed to a number of m = 15 specialists,
working in automotive branch, to rank the k = 8
causes identified that influence the quality of
ultrasonic welded knots. Each expert had to
complete a survey form, where all the potential
causes of process error. The primary table,
containing aij ranks assigned by each expert i to j
causes analyzed, is presented in Table 2. The steps
for statistical data processing are [3]:
a) The primary results of the investigation were
processed by summing the ranks assigned to
each cause (column):
m
A j   a ij j  1,...,k
i 1 (1)
Based on this calculus, the overall ranks are assigned
θj(1) in the primary table (Table 2).
 Table 2. Primary inquiry table
Causes j
Expert i
X1 X2 X3 X4 X5 X6 X7 X8
1 1 1 4 2 1 2 3 1
2 1 2 6 3 8 7 5 4
3 1 4 4 1 4 2 1 3
4 2 4 3 4 5 1 3 1
5 1 3 4 2 6 5 7 8
6 1 3 2 3 5 4 3 2
7 1 1 2 3 5 4 3 2
8 1 2 2 3 4 1 2 1
9 1 2 3 2 4 1 2 1
10 1 1 2 2 3 1 3 2
11 1 2 8 3 6 5 4 7
12 2 3 4 4 6 1 5 1
13 1 2 3 3 3 1 3 2
14 2 1 5 3 7 6 4 7
15 1 3 4 1 7 2 6 5
Aij(1) 18 34 56 39 74 43 54 47
θj(1) 1 2 7 3 8 4 6 5

b) Because there were specialists who have given c) The secondary table (Table 3) data were
identical ranks to causes, the primary table data processed by applying relation (1) and assigning
were corrected by coupling the ranks. This has global ranks θj(2).
resulted to obtaining a secondary table.
Table 3. Secondary table

Causes j
Expert i Ti
X1 X2 X3 X4 X5 X6 X7 X8
1 2.5 2.5 8 5.5 2.5 5.5 7 2,5 66
2 1 2 6 3 8 7 5 4 0
3 2 7 7 2 7 4 2 5 48
4 3 6.5 4.5 6.5 8 1.5 4.5 1.5 18
5 1 3 4 2 6 5 7 8 0
6 1 5 2.5 5 8 7 5 2.5 30
7 1.5 1.5 3.5 5.5 8 7 5.5 3.5 18
8 2 5 5 7 8 2 5 2 48
9 2 5 7 5 8 2 5 2 48
10 2 2 5 5 7.5 2 7.5 5 54
11 1 2 8 3 6 5 4 7 0
12 3 4 5.5 5.5 8 1.5 7 1.5 12
13 1.5 3.5 6.5 6.5 6.5 1.5 6.5 3.5 72
14 2 1 5 3 7.5 6 4 7.5 6
15 1.5 4 5 1.5 8 3 7 6 6
Aij(1) 27 54 82.5 66 107 60 82 71
θj(2) 1 2 7 5 8 3 6 4
Δj² 1640.25 182.25 225 2.25 1560.25 56.25 210 12.25

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 m k m
d) The adequacy of the data from the primary table 1
to the secondary table was checked by  j   aij   a ij
i 1 k j 1 i 1
(4)
calculating the correlation coefficient:
k

rs  1  3
6

k

 j(1)   j( 2 )
2
 
Ti   t 3j  t j  i  1,...,m
k  k j 1 (2)
j 1
(5)
As the correlation coefficient has the value: tj representing the number of identical ranks
rs  0,928  1 , assigned by the i expert.
Since k > 7 , the criterion suited that must be used
the secondary table data can be used for the next for verifying is:
steps of the procedure. 2
 calc  m k  1 w
e) Consistency between the views expressed by (6)
experts has to be ensure by calculating the Seeing that:
coefficient of consensus: χ²calc =46.06 > χ²tab;α;k-1 = χ²tab;0.05;7 = 14.07 (7)
k
2
it can be concluded that there is a significant

j 1
j correlation between the views of professionals.
w  12 m
The ordering results are represented, choosing the
 
m 2 k 3  k  m  Ti axis values 1000/Aij (Figure 9).
i 1 ……, (3)
where:

Figure 9. Components of an ultrasonic welding machine

4. CONCLUSIONS
Following the hierarchy of causes, based on
statistical processing of the views of 15 experts
involved in automotive field, the root cause that
influence the occurrence of nonconforming welds,
according to the specifications prescribed in the
documentation was identified. The research revealed
that the most possible reason for obtaining defects
after welding process is X1 – the conformity of
electric wires. So, both operators and quality
engineers have to focus for finding corrective
measures related to this cause.
Even if they were also ranked, order obtained for
other causes has less relevance, because the
calculated values are relatively close. In other words,
the results regarding these causes should be analyzed
with caution, the method applied being subjective.
For a higher confidence of the results, method can
be resumed, with the weighting of expert responses,
depending on their competence and interest in
research.
5. REFERENCES
1. Borror, C.M., The Certified Quality Engineer
Handbook, Third Edition, ASQ Quality
Press, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, (2004);
2. Mnerie, A., Nanu, A., Mnerie, D., Slavici, T.,
(2009), SOME Aspects of automated electrical
erosion machine with wire electrode, ISSN
1454-3087, Volume XIII, nr.1/2009
3. Nichici, Al., Cicală, E., Mee, R., Prelucrarea
datelor experimentale, UPT, (1996).
4. http://www.kromberg-schubert.com, accesed on
12.05.2013
5. www.kormax.com.cn/eng/ultrasonic.html,
accesed on 12.05.2013

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