Technical review on cladding technology as an enabler of high strength

aluminum for resistance spot welding within multi-material-design and light

weight strategy for automotive body

Pedro Bamberg, Alexander Schiebahn, Uwe Reisgen, Nico Precoma

Welding and Joining Institute – ISF, Aachen University - RWTH

bamberg@isf.rwth-aachen.de

Within the last decade the application of aluminium alloys as part of vehicles structure has
increased remarkably, in order to reduce its curb weight and comply with the last regulations
regarding greenhouse gases emission and fuel consumption. However, several challenges are
yet to be overcome.

The range of aluminium alloys suitable for resistance spot welding in this scenario is quite
limited, as some of them may face stability problems, short welding window, incompatibility
with other alloys, accelerated erosion of the welding electrodes or simply lack of possibility to
be welded by fusion processes due to proneness to solidification cracking. This often leads to
the use of high strength steel as reinforcement parts (bars, pillars, fenders, etc.) of vehicle
structures, while high strength aluminum alloys such as AW-7075 deliver similar mechanical
properties with one third of the mass, configuring a great opportunity for lightweight
construction. In this scenario, the cladding of different aluminum alloys can combine advanced
mechanical properties with RSW-suitable chemical properties expanding the application range
of possibilities of multi-material and lightweight design.

In this work, a technical pre-assessment of the cladded aluminum alloys was performed in
order to ensure the material combination advantages, verifying improvement of electrode
lifetime, microstructural conditions and welding quality.