Materials Science & Engineering A 680 (2017) 97–107

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Materials Science & Engineering A

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Fracture toughness of martensitic stainless steel resistance spot welds

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M. Pouranvari
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

A R T I C L E I N F O A BS T RAC T

Keywords: The paper is focused on the strength and fracture toughness of AISI420 martensitic stainless steel resistance
Resistance spot weld spot welds under the tensile-shear loading. The failure behavior of AISI420 spot welds was featured by quasi-
Martensitic stainless steel cleavage interfacial failure with low load bearing capacity and weak energy absorption capability which was a
Fracture toughness function of the weld fusion microstructure, predominately carbon and chromium rich martensite plus δ-ferrite.
Failure mode
Fracture toughness of the fusion zone proved to be the most important factor controlling the peak load of the
spot welds made on AISI420 failed in interfacial mode. A geometry-independent fracture toughness of the weld
nugget (c.a. 23 MPam0.5) was determined using fracture mechanics concept. Through modeling it was found
that there is a critical fracture toughness which beyond that the pullout failure mode can be obtained which is a
function of sheet thickness and tensile strength of the base metal.

1. Introduction
Spot weld failure during a crash is a critical issue for crashworthi-
ness, stiffness and NVH (Noise, Vibration and Harshness) performance
of the vehicle. Therefore, a fundamental knowledge of the failure
process of the spot welds are required to achieve sound, strong and
reliable welds [1]. Analyzing and predicting the spot welds perfor-
mance and their failure is a challenging problem due to complexity of
the spot welds originating from several aspects including following
ones:
(i) Heterogeneous metallurgical structure: Due to thermal cycle of the
welding process the original microstructure of the base metal is
destroyed producing a steep gradient in microstructure and
mechanical properties across the weldment. Phase transformations
in the fusion zone and heat affected zone affects the hardness,
strength and toughness of the materials which can deteriorate the
mechanical properties of the weld [2–9].
(ii) The unique and complicated geometrical features: A resistance
spot weld can be considered as an axisymmetrically notched body
[10] (i.e. creating a spot weld produces a notch around itself). The
behavior of the notch under loading is a critical issue in determin-
ing the failure behavior of the weldment. Other factors such a
electrode indentation and shrinkage voids and porosity can also act
as stress concentration sites [1].
Therefore, the failure mode and failure mechanism of the spot
welds largely depend on the complex interplay between weld geometry,
materials properties of base metal (BM), fusion zone (FZ) and heat
affected zone (HAZ), test geometry, and the stress state in the weld
[1,11–14]. Generally, spot welds can fail in two distinct modes [1]: (i)
Interfacial failure (IF) mode in which, the fracture propagates through
the fusion zone. It is believed that this failure mode has detrimental
effect on the crashworthiness of the vehicles and (ii) Pullout failure
(PF) mode in which, the failure occurs via withdrawal of the weld
nugget from one sheet. Generally, the PF mode exhibits the most
satisfactory mechanical properties.
Materials selection is a critical issue in vehicle design. The driving
force for materials evolutions in motor vehicles and railed vehicles are
light-weighting, energy conservation, environmental protection and
improved crashworthiness [1]. Besides a great deal of much attention
on advanced high strength steels, stainless steels with superior corro-
sion resistance, unique work-hardening behavior and excellent energy
absorption capability are promising materials for transportation appli-
cations [15–18]. Therefore, high strength martensitic stainless steels
are good candidates for high-stiffness, load-transferring barriers and
anti-intrusion barriers (e.g. side frame, crash box, door reinforcement,
bumper beam and front subframe) to crash managing and protection of
passenger during impact collisions [19].
Martensitic stainless steels exhibit a good strength-formability
combination in annealed conditions and then they can achieve higher
strength via hot stamping process [20]. MSS have been considered as
potential complementary solutions to existing press hardening steels.
In contrast to martensitic boron carbon steels, high corrosion/oxida-
tion resistance of MSS eliminate the need for expensive coatings for
oxidation protection during hot-stamping process which make them

E-mail address: pouranvari@sharif.edu.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.msea.2016.10.088
Received 4 August 2016; Received in revised form 21 October 2016; Accepted 22 October 2016
Available online 26 October 2016
0921-5093/ © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
M. Pouranvari Materials Science & Engineering A 680 (2017) 97–107

compatible with fast heating processes. Moreover, due to their high

hardenability, very slow cooling rate (ca. 1 Ks−1) is sufficient to achieve
martensitic microstructure [21–23]. The conventional joining process
involves resistance spot welding after hot stamping process. In this
process the HAZ softening due to martensite tempering limits the
achievable joint strength. Recently, an emerging technology so-called
hot stamping spot welding tailored blank technology is under devel-
opment in which the annealed soft blank is resistance spot welded
before performing hot stamping process [24,25]. This process elim-
inates the occurrence of the HAZ softening and the subsequent
quenching during hot stamping produces relatively uniform hardness
distribution across the weldment [24,25]. The key requirement in this
process is the avoidance of weld failure during hot stamping process. It
is also a vital issue for hot stamping of patchwork blanks, where the
local stiffness and mechanical performance is enhanced by spot
welding a reinforcing patch to the main forming blank [26,27].
Therefore, the metallurgical behavior of annealed martensitic stainless
steels with initial ferritic microstructure during resistance spot welding
and their failure characteristics is important for their implementation
in the automotive body-in-white.
The aim of this work is to investigate the failure characteristic of
annealed AISI420 martensitic stainless steels spot welds under tensile-
shear loading. It was examined that which material properties played
dominant role in controlling the strength of the martensitic stainless
steel spot welds. It was found that the tensile-shear strength of the
welds is governed by the fracture toughness of the fusion zone. Then,
the fracture toughness of the fusion zone is determined and its validity
Fig. 1. (a) Welding Schedule, tS: squeeze time, tW: welding time, th: holding time and IW:
is discussed. welding current (b) the tensile-shear specimen dimensions. Point A experiences
maximum stress intensity factors KI and KII. Point B experiences the maximum stress
intensity factor KIII.
2. Materials and method

indentations sizes, they were measured using an image analyzer

This study concerned the joining of AISI420 martensitic stainless
steel (MSS) using resistance spot welding. The sheet thickness was
1.5 mm. The chemical composition and mechanical properties of the
investigated steel are given in Table 1.
Despite the fact that the surface of the sheets was almost free from
grease and dirt, to ensure consistent cleanliness of the sheet steels, they
were cleaned with cotton prior to the welding experiments. Resistance
spot welding was performed using a PLC controlled, 120 kVA AC
pedestal type resistance spot welding machine. Welding was conducted
using a 45° truncated cone RWMA Class 2 electrode with 8-mm face
diameter. Fig. 1a shows the welding schedule.
The quasi-static tensile-shear test samples were prepared according
to ANSI/AWS/SAE/D8.9-97 standard [28] (Fig. 1b). The tensile-shear
tests were performed at a crosshead speed of 10 mm/min. Peak load
(measured as the peak point in the load-displacement curve) and
failure energy (measured as the area under the load-displacement
curve up to the peak load) were extracted from the load-displacement
curve. Failure modes of spot welds were determined by observing the
weld fracture surfaces.
Samples for metallographic examination were prepared using
standard metallography procedure. The metallographic samples were
etched by Villela reagent (1 gr picric acid, 5 ml HCl, 100 ml ethanol).
Weld microstructures and macrostructures were examined under
optical microscopy. Vickers microhardness test, was used to assess
the hardness values of the weldment. An applied load of 100 g and a
time of 15 s were used. To increase the accuracy in reading of the
software (ImageJ) under optical microscopy.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Metallurgical and physical weld attributes
Fig. 2a shows a typical macrostructure of AISI420 stainless steel
resistance spot welds indicating a heterogeneous structure including
three distinct microstructural zones: FZ, HAZ and BM. The hardness
profile across the weldment (Fig. 2b) confirms the presence of
microstructure gradient in the weldment (Fig. 3a):
(i) Base metal (BM): Fig. 3b shows the microstructure of the BM
indicating a ferrite matrix decorated with carbides particle which are
essentially Cr-rich carbides. The average hardness of the BM is 220 HV
which is in accordance to its microstructure.
(ii) Fusion zone (FZ): Fig. 3c shows the FZ microstructure exhibit-
ing a completely different microstructure. The FZ consisted of mar-
tensite with some amount of δ-ferrite along solidification grain and
sub-grain boundaries. It is of note that there is a narrow region of
equiaxed dendritic zone at the weld nugget edge (Fig. 3d). This zone
was formed by a mechanism similar to that of the formation of the
equiaxed chill zone in cast ingots [29]. However, the microstructure of
all regions in the FZ is nearly the same (i.e. dual phase microstructure
of martensite and δ-ferrite). The phase transformation sequence in the
FZ can be explained with the help of to pseudo-binary equilibrium Fe-

Table 1
Chemical composition and mechanical properties of the investigated AISI 420 martensitic stainless steel.

Chemical composition, wt% Mechanical properties

C Mn Si Cr Ni Cu V Fe YS, MPa UTS, MPa TEL, %

0.34 0.55 0.30 12.9 0.09 0.03 0.06 Base 377 566 60

*YS is yield strength; UTS is ultimate tensile strength; TEL is total elongation.

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M. Pouranvari
Fig. 2. Martensitic stainless steel resistance spot weld: (a) typical macrostructure, (b) typical hardness profile, (c) weld nugget growth as a function of welding current.
Cr-C diagram at 13% Cr (Fig. 4a) [30]. According to Fig. 4a, the
equilibrium phase transformations sequence of the MSS can be
summarized as follows:
I II
L → L + δprimary → L + δprimary + (δeutetic + γeutectic )
III IV V
⎯⎯⎯→δprimary + (δeutetic + γeutectic ) ⎯⎯⎯→ γ → α + M23 C6
However, the rapid cooling rate of RSW has a profound effect on the
final microstructure of the FZ. Here, an estimation of cooling rate using
Gould's model [31] is provided based on the following analytical
equation:
⎛ ⎞
⎜ ⎟
∂T ⎛ απ 2 ⎞ ⎛ ⎞
T ⎜ T ⎟
= −⎜ 2 ⎟ ⎜ ⎟ ⎜TP −
∂t ⎝ 4tS ⎠ ⎝ TP ⎠ 2 ⎛ kE ⎞ ⎛ tS ⎞ ⎛ π ⎞⎟
⎜ 1 + ( π ) ⎜ k ⎟ ⎜ t ⎟ cos ⎜ 2t x ⎟ ⎟
⎝ ⎝ S ⎠⎝ E ⎠ ⎝ S ⎠⎠
where, α is thermal diffusivity of the steel sheets, TP is the maximum
temperature experienced in FZ during welding process, ts is the sheet
thickness, tE is the electrode face thicknesses (i.e the distance of water
cooled hole to the electrode surface), kS and kE are thermal conductiv-
ities of steel and electrode, respectively, and x is the position through
the spot weld in sheet thickness direction.
Fig. 4b shows the calculated cooling rates for RSW of martensitic
stainless steels with thickness range of 1–2 mm for the temperature
range of 200–1500 °C. For 1.5 mm thick MSS, the average cooling rate
in the range of 1400–1200 °C, which is critical for post solidification
solid state transformations, and the average cooling rate in the range of
500–700 °C, which is critical for martensitic transformation, are
roughly 7600 and 4500 °C/s, respectively. Such extremely rapid cool-
ing rate of the weld nugget induced three effects on the microstructure
evolution of the FZ:
(a) The δ-ferrite to austenite transformation (stage IV) is a solid-state
transformation. Therefore, very high rapid cooling during welding
suppresses this reaction leaving some δ-ferrite in the microstruc-
ture. Due to its higher content of ferrite promoting elements, the
primary δ-ferrite presented higher ferrite-austenite transformation
temperature compared to that of for eutectic δ-ferrite [32]. This
promotes transformation of primary δ-ferrite to austenite at
elevated temperature, where diffusion is more effective. However,
due to low ferrite to austenite transformation temperature of the
eutectic δ-ferrite, cooling rate during RSW suppress its transfor-
mation to austenite. Therefore, this is the eutectic δ-ferrite which
remains in the microstructure of the FZ. The average volume
Materials Science & Engineering A 680 (2017) 97–107
fraction of δ-ferrite is 13.4%. In general, the presence of δ-ferrite in
the microstructure of martensitic stainless steels is undesirable
[32]. Despite the low hardness of the ferrite and its good capability
for plastic deformation, it has been reported that the disparity in
mechanical properties between the ferrite and the martensite and
lack of cohesion between the delta ferrite and the surrounding
(1)
matrix can reduce the impact toughness of the martensitic stain-
less steels [32–35].
(b) The high temperature austenite transforms to the martensite at
room temperature. According to available CCT diagram for
AISI420 steel, the critical cooling rate for martensitic transforma-
tion is 0.1 °C/s [36,37]. Therefore, considering the rapid cooling
rate of RSW, achieving a martensitic matrix is not surprising. The
high carbon content of the martensite formed in the FZ (i.e.
0.34 wt%) is the main reason for the high hardness of the FZ.
(2) (c) The rapid cooling rate of RSW prevented the precipitation of
M23C6 carbides in the FZ. According to available CCT diagram for
AISI420 steel, upon cooling rates exceeding 2 °C/s the precipita-
tion of carbides are precluded [36,37].
Therefore, the phase transformation sequence of the FZ during
RSW can be summarized as follows:
I II
L → L + δprimary → L + δprimary + (δeutetic + γeutectic )
III IV V ′
⎯⎯⎯→δprimary + (δeutetic + γeutectic ) ⎯⎯⎯→ γ + δeutetic → αmartensite + δeutetic (3)
According to Fig. 2b, the FZ exhibited very high hardness (ca.
620 HV). Considering the average size of the Vickers indentation (ca.
17 µm) and average size of the sub-grains of primary austenite as the
characteristics length of the FZ microstructure (ca. 8 µm), it can be
concluded that the measured hardness is the weighted average of both
martensite and δ-ferrite phases present in the FZ microstructure. It is
of note that the welding current does not have significant effect on the
microstructure of the FZ in terms of ferrite volume fraction and
primary austenite sub-grain size. Also, the average hardness of the
FZ does not vary significantly with welding current, as it has been
reported in previous researches [4].
The size of the fusion zone, which is a critical factor in determining
the mechanical properties of the welds, is a function of generated heat
during welding. Fig. 2c shows the dependence of the weld fusion zone
size on the welding current.
(iii) Heat affected Zone (HAZ): According to Fig. 4a, the HAZ can be
divided into two distinct zones: high temperature HAZ which experi-
ences full austenitization (temperature range between 1050–1400 °C)
during slow heating (equilibrium condition) and low temperature HAZ
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M. Pouranvari
Fig. 3. Microstructure of martensitic stainless steel resistance spot weld: (a) microstructure gradient in the weldment, (b) base metal microstructure and (c-d) fusion microstructure, (e)
high temperature HAZ and (f) low temperature HAZ.
which experiences partial austenitization during heating (temperature
range between 850–1050 °C). Fig. 3e and f show the microstructure of
the high temperature and low temperature HAZ, respectively. Overall,
the HAZ microstructure consisted of martensite and carbides. Due to
high hardenability of the AISI420, austenite will transform into
martensite during cooling. Moving from BM to fusion boundary the
volume fraction of the carbides increased, as it is evident from
micrographs shown in Fig. 3(e–f). The reason for the presence of high
volume fraction of carbides in high temperature HAZ is the limited
available time for carbide dissolution and increased carbide dissolution
temperature at very high heating rate [38] of the RSW process.
Therefore, high amount of carbide remains undissolved the matrix of
the HAZ.
It is of note that the initial microstructure of the base metal does
affect the microstructure/properties of the weld HAZ. When welding a
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Materials Science & Engineering A 680 (2017) 97–107
base metal with initial ferritic microstructure, as can be seen in Fig. 2b,
the HAZ exhibited hardening compared to the base metal due to
formation martensitic and carbides. However, When welding a base
metal with initial martensitic microstructure, the HAZ exhibited soft-
ening compared to the base metal due to martensite tempering.
In addition to the presence of microstructural gradient in the
weldment, a sharp notch is created at sheet/sheet interface due to
spot welding (see Fig. 3a). The shape of the notch is affected by the
properties of the materials around the tip of the notch (i.e. HAZ). A
sharp notch can increase the stress concentration at the sheet/sheet
interface making the weld susceptible to the interfacial fracture mode.
Moreover, an indentation is created on the sheet surfaces which can
increase the stress concentration at the nugget edge. Both microstruc-
ture variations and geometrical changes induced by spot welding led to
degrade the mechanical performance of the welds compared to the BM.
M. Pouranvari Materials Science & Engineering A 680 (2017) 97–107

Fig. 4. (a) pseudo-binary equilibrium Fe-Cr-C diagram at 13% Cr [30] and (b) calculated cooling rate during RSW of martensitic steels based on the Gold's model (Eq. (2)) for the
temperature range of 200–1400 °C for various sheet thicknesses. Typical values for physical properties of the steels are used for the calculation (Tm=1505 C, K=28.7 W/mK,
α=7.99×10−6). The peak temperature of FZ during welding is assumed to be 200 °C higher than the melting point. The electrode face thickness is 8 mm. A value of 320 W/mK is
considered for thermal conductivity of class II RWMA copper-based electrode. Regions (I) and (II) correspond to the temperature range for post solidification transformation and the
nose of CCT diagram of martensitic stainless steels.

Fig. 5. Typical interfacial failure mode observed during the tensile-shear testing of the MSS spot welds: welds made at welding current of (a) 7 kA and (b) 10 kA.

3.2. Failure mode ⎛H ⎞

The results showed that all welds failed via crack propagation into
the fusion zone (i.e. interfacial failure mode). Fig. 5(a and b) shows the
fracture surface of welds made by 6 and 10 kA, respectively. No pullout
failure was observed in this study indicating high susceptibility of
AISI420 to IF mode.
The failure mode in resistance spot welds is primarily sensitive to
the weld FZ size. Pouranvari et al. [39,40] proposed a semi-analytical
model to correlate the materials properties and failure mode transition
during tensile-shear loading of spot welds. They showed that the failure
of resistance spot welds during the tensile-shear test can be described
as a competition between the shear plastic deformation of the fusion
zone (i.e. IF mode) and the necking in the base metal or HAZ (i.e. PF
mode). Based on the failure mechanism of spot welds in the tensile-
shear test, the following equation was proposed to predict the mini-
mum FZ size for the occurrence of pull-out failure mode [39,40]:
DC = 8t ⎜ PFL ⎟
⎝ HFZ ⎠ (4)
where, t is the sheet thickness, HFZ and HPFL are hardness values (HV)
of the fusion zone and pullout failure location, respectively.
Applicability of this criterion has been examined for a wide range of
similar and dissimilar resistance spot weld involving drawing quality
special killed (DQSK) low carbon steels, austenitic stainless steels,
HSLA steels, DP and TRIP steels with hardness ratios ranging between
1.2 and 3 [39–43]. It was shown that this simple model can be served
as a first approximation for sizing of the spot welds ensuring PF mode
during tensile-shear loading [39–43]. It was shown for various auto-
motive steels that there is inverse correlation between hardness ratio
(i.e. HFZ/HPFL) and DC (i.e. the higher hardness of the FZ compared to
the BM, the lower the tendency to fail in IF mode) [39–43]. The
average hardness values of FZ and BM are 620 and 220 HV,
respectively. Therefore, the hardness ratio for AISI420 welds is 2.8

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M. Pouranvari Materials Science & Engineering A 680 (2017) 97–107

Fig. 6. SEM fracture surface of the martensitic stainless steel resistance spot welds during the tensile-shear testing: (a) the presence of voids and secondary cracks, the loading direction
is shown in the image. (b) the faceted nature of the fracture surface, (c-d) quasi-cleavage fracture surface, (e-f) solidification induced voids.

which is higher than traditional and advanced high strength steel [1].
According to this model, the minimum FZ size required to ensure PF
mode during tensile-shear testing of 1.5 mm AISI420 welds is 4.3 mm.
This calculation shows that Eq. (4) cannot predict failure mode of
AISI420 welds.
It is well known that there is a critical FZ size beyond which the
welds fail in the pullout failure mode during the tensile-shear test. For
example, the critical fusion sizes for spot welds made from 1.5 mm
thick DQSK (hardness ratio of 2.4) [39], HSLA (hardness ratio of 2)
[43], DP600 (hardness ratio of 2.1) [41], and DP980 steels (hardness
ratio of 1.9) [41] were 5, 6, 6.3, and 7.1 mm, respectively. In this study,
despite the fact that the weld nugget sizes larger than 4t0.5 and 5t0.5
recommendations were obtained, no pullout failure mode was ob-
served. These evidences indicate that AISI420 exhibited high suscept-
ibility to fail in IF mode compared to that of in other automotive steels.
However, this high susceptibility to IF mode can not be explained using
Eq. (4). Indeed, in contrary to Eq. (4), the high hardness ratio of
AISI420 welds does not lead to low tendency to fail in IF mode. The
high susceptibility of AISI420 to IF mode can be explained as follows:
(i) Low fracture toughness of the FZ: The failure mechanism of spot
welds made on traditional and advanced automotive steels during

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M. Pouranvari Materials Science & Engineering A 680 (2017) 97–107

Fig. 7. Weld notch at the sheet/sheet interface of martensitic stainless steel resistance
spot welds. The crack propagated from notch into the fusion zone due to high stress
concentration associated with the sharp notch as well as high brittleness of the FZ.

tensile-shear test has been investigated by several researchers

[2,5,11,28]. It has been shown that the fracture surface of the
welds failed in IF mode exhibited elongated dimple like character-
istics [2,23]. This confirms that the interfacial failure is accom-
panied with shear plastic deformation of the FZ. In this condition,
the mechanical properties of spot welds failed in IF mode are
controlled by the shear strength of the FZ which is proportional to
the FZ hardness. However, investigation of the IF failure micro-
mechanism of AISI420 welds showed a distinct mechanism. Fig. 6
shows the fracture surface morphology of AISI420 welds failed in
IF mode. The low magnification SEM image of the fracture surface
(Fig. 6a) shows that the fracture is accompanied with low plastic
deformation. The fracture surface contains some secondary cracks
and voids. Examination of the fracture surface with higher
magnification (Fig. 6b) indicates a faceted fracture surface.
Moreover, the presence of secondary cracks on the fracture surface
can be attributed to the brittleness of the fracture path. Higher
magnification images (Fig. 6c–d) confirm that the fracture has a
quasi-cleavage nature with combined ductile and brittle micro-
scopic characteristics. The cleavage fracture corresponded to the
hard martensite formed in the FZ. The ductile dimple-like fracture
corresponded to the presence of the soft δ-ferrite at the sub-grain
and grain boundaries of the primary austenite. Indeed, the sub-
grain and grain boundary δ-ferrite acted as the connecting liga-
ments of the microstructure, are sufficiently large that dimples can
be observed in thin bands weaving through the general cleavage
surface. The average cleavage facet size was found to be a strong
function of the cell-like sub-grain size of the prior-austenite (i.e.
the parent phase of the martensite). The investigation of the
fracture surface of the voids (Fig. 6e–f) showed a dendritic
morphology which can confirm that they are formed during
solidification. In summary, it can be concluded that the mechan-
ism of the interfacial failure in AISI420 welds is brittle crack
propagation into the FZ. Therefore, in this condition, the mechan-
ical properties of spot welds failed in IF mode are controlled by the
fracture toughness of the FZ. Therefore, the high susceptibility of
AISI420 welds to IF mode can be related the formation of C and Fig. 8. Mechanical behavior of martensitic stainless steel resistance spot weld: (a) Load-
Cr-rich martensite in the FZ which provides a low fracture displacement curves at two welding current levels, the arrows show the peak point in the
toughness path for the crack propagation. curves, effect of (b) welding current and (c) weld button size on the peak load and energy
(ii) Shape of weld notch: The stress concentration of the weld notch absorption.
plays an important role in brittle crack propagation. Therefore, the
shape of the sheet/sheet notch can influence the failure behavior of cutting. This indicates the low fracture toughness of the FZ.
the welds. The sharper the notch the higher driving force for the
crack propagation. Fig. 7 shows the morphology of the notch in the
weldment indicating the presence of sharp notch in a hard zone 3.3. Mechanical behavior
(i.e. FZ/HAZ interface with hardness about 620 HV). As can be
seen in Fig. 7, a crack is propagated from the notch into the FZ 3.3.1. Peak load and energy absorption
during sectioning of the metallographic sample using abrasive Fig. 8a shows the load-displacement characteristics at two different
welding currents. Fig. 8b shows the effect of the welding current on the

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Fig. 9. Peak load and energy absorption of resistance spot welds of different types of automotive steels including low strength low carbon steels, dual phase steels, and austenitic
stainless steels steel [41] compared with martensitic stainless steels: (a) peak load, (b) normalized peak load, (c) energy absorption and (d) normalized energy absorption. Peak load data
were normalized by dividing to the BM tensile strength. Failure energy data were normalized by dividing to the (BM tensile strength* BM total elongation). The tensile strength of LCS,
DP600, DP780, DP980, ASS are 305, 610, 790, 995 and 615 MPa. The elongation of LCS, DP600, DP780, DP980, ASS are 45%, 23%, 18%, 12% and 50%.
peak load and failure energy of the spot welds. Increasing welding
current enhances the load bearing capacity and energy absorption
capability of the welds.
Mechanical performance of the spot welds are governed by weld
physical attributes particularly FZ size and hardness/ductility of the
failure location. Fig. 8c shows the effect of FZ size on the peak load and
energy absorption of the welds indicating a direct relationship between
peak load (and failure energy) and FZ size. Increasing FZ size increases
the effective cross-sectional area of the weldment contributing in load
bearing and energy absorption during failure process.
To provide a basis for comparison, mechanical properties of the
AISI420 welds are compared with those of some other automotive
steels (Fig. 9). The peak load and energy absorption of various
automotive steels including low carbon steel, dual phase steel (includ-
ing DP600, DP780 and DP980) and austenitic stainless steels [41] are
compared with mechanical properties of AISI420 welds. All data shown
in Fig. 9(a–d) are for welds with FZ sizes of 5t0.5 made on 1.5 mm thick
sheets. Peak load data were normalized by dividing by the BM tensile
strength. Failure energy data were normalized by dividing to the (BM
tensile strength* BM total elongation). According to Fig. 8, the MSS
spot welds exhibited the lowest normalized peak load and normalized
energy absorption among the spot welds made from the other auto-
motive steels which can be attributed to their brittle interfacial failure.
It is of note that in situation where the BM is considered to be used in
quenched stated (i.e. BM with martensitic matrix), the normalized peak
load is much lower than the value shown in Fig. 9b.
3.3.2. Fracture toughness
As it is seen, the failure of AISI420 welds was brittle as it was
featured by negligible macroscopic plastic deformation associated to
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Materials Science & Engineering A 680 (2017) 97–107
this failure and cleavage microscopic fracture mechanism. Therefore,
considering the cleavage brittle fracture mode and the presence of a
sharp notch at the sheet/sheet interface, the failure of the AISI420
welds can be considered as a linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM)
problem. In this situation, the peak load in interfacial failure mode
(PIF) can be calculated using LEFM concept. The sharp slit between two
overlap sheets joined by a spot weld is actually an intrinsic three-
dimensional crack as the slit circumferentially ends at the nugget edge
[44,45].
Point A in Fig. 1b, the front face vertex in line with the loading
direction, experiences mode I and II loading conditions. The maximum
stress intensity factors KI and KII occur simultaneously at point A [44].
Point B in Fig. 1b experiences the maximum stress intensity factor KIII.
It is shown that the circumferential shear notch stress at point B in
Fig. 1b is smaller than the notch stress at point A. Therefore, point A
can be considered as the failure initiation site. Zhang [44] calculated
the stress intensity factors at the spot welds under tensile-shear loading
condition. KI and KII at point A in Fig. 1b can be calculated using
following equations [44]:
3P
KI =
2πd t (5)
2P
KII =
πd t (6)
To account for mixed loading condition at Point A, the following
equivalent stress intensity factor was proposed by Radaj and Zhang
[45]:
P
Keq = KI2 + KII2 = 0.694
d t (7)
M. Pouranvari
Fig. 10. (a) The calculated KC for each weld nugget size for spot welds made on 1.5 mm
thick (current study) and 1.2 mm thick (data from [4]) martensitic stainless steels. (b)
plot of PIF versus 1.44Dt0.5 for 1.5 mm thick MSS spot welds. The zero-intercept linear
line shows that the peak load is controlled by FZ the fracture toughness.
Fig. 11. Peak load of 1.2 and 1.5 mm thick martensitic stainless steel resistance spot
welds: predicted values using Eq. (8) vs. experimental values.
The fracture is initiated when Keq reaches to a critical value of KC.
Therefore, the load bearing capacity of spot welds containing crack-like
notch can be calculated using following equation:
PIF = 1.44d t KC (8)
Therefore, KC was calculated for each weld nugget size by re-
arranged form of Eq. (8):
105
Materials Science & Engineering A 680 (2017) 97–107
PIF
KC =
1.44d t (9)
Fig. 10a shows the calculated KC for each weld nugget size. As can
be seen, the KC for AISI420 welds can be considered independent from
the weld nugget size. The average fracture toughness of the fusion zone
is 23.4 MPam0.5. This is verified by examination the plot of the PIF
versus 1.44Dt0.5. As can be seen in Fig. 10b, the plot of PIF versus
1.44Dt0.5 gave a zero intercept linear line with an R-square prediction
of 0.98. This shows that the KC does not change by weld nugget size.
Regarding the determined value for the fracture toughness (i.e. 23.4
MPam0.5) of AISI420 the following issues should be considered:
(i) In order to apply linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM), the
stress intensity factor (K)-domain should be much larger than the
plastic zone size around the notch tip. On the other hand the
plastic zone size should not extend over the sheet thickness during
loading [10]. To investigate the small scale yielding criterion, the
plastic zone size (rp) should be estimated. There is no formula to
assess the rp at the crack tip in tensile-shear loading. However,
according to Irwin criterion [46], maximum size of the plastic
zone can be estimated from the stress intensity factor KC and the
yield stress σY; and can be expressed as follows:
1 ⎛ KC ⎞
2
rp = ⎜ ⎟
2π ⎝ σY ⎠ (10)
According to Eq. (10), the value of σY of the weld nugget is required
to calculate rp. However, direct measurement of yield strength of the FZ
is not easy. Therefore, to obtain the FZ yield strength, a AISI420 steel
sample was heat treated to obtain full martensitic microstructure. The
average hardness of the BM was 614 HV, which is near the hardness of
the FZ. The yield strength of the heat treated steel which was about
1523 MPa was considered as the yield strength of the FZ. Therefore,
according to Eq. (10), the plastic zone size at the notch tip can be
estimated as 0.04 mm, which is significantly less than the sheet
thickness. Therefore, the small scale yielding condition is established
in the present case.
(ii) As can be seen in Fig. 9b, the obtained fracture toughness is
independent of the weld nugget size. This confirms that the
obtained KC is a function of weld nugget microstructure and is
not dependent on the geometrical factors of the weld. This fact
imply that the FZ microstructure does not changes significantly by
welding current (and hence weld nugget size). Through metallur-
gical examination, it was observed that the effect of welding
current on the volume fraction of δ-ferrite and the mean size of
sub-grain of prior austenite is negligible. Despite the fact that the
δ-ferrite volume fraction depends on the cooling rate [33], it can
be concluded that the small variation of cooling rate caused by
changing the welding current, can not affect solidification process
and δe→γ transformation hence producing nearly constant micro-
structure in the FZ. This is due to very high cooling rate during
RSW.
(iii) To check the validity of the present method to determine KC, the
experimental results of a previous work on RSW of 1.2 mm
AISI420 spot welds were assessed using this method. The KC for
was determined using Eq. (9). The KC is 24.0 MPa m0.5 which is
nearly same as KC for 1.5 mm thick sheet (i.e. 23.4 MPam0.5). The
sheet thickness can affect the cooling rate (see Fig. 4b). Decreasing
sheet thickness increases the cooling rate during RSW. According
to Fig. 4b, decreasing sheet thickness from 1.5 to 1.2 mm, the
average cooling rate in temperature range of 1400–1200 °C
increases from 7600 to 10,000 °C/s. However, considering very
high cooling rate for both sheet thickness, it can be concluded that
in this range of sheet thickness the cooling rate does not affect the
FZ microstructure of AISI420. However, it should be noted that
generally transposition of the fracture toughness values to very
M. Pouranvari
different sheet thickness is hazardous, unless is it proved that the
FZ microstructure is actually the same.
(iv) Using the determined KC (24.0 MPa for 1.2 mm thick sheet and
23.4 MPa for 1.5 mm thick sheet) and Eq. (6), the peak load of the
spot welds made on 1.2 and 1.5 thick AISI420 is calculated.
Fig. 11 compares the predicted and experimental value for peak
load indicating a good agreement between the prediction and
experimental results.
3.4. Final remark: failure mode transition prediction
The interfacial to pullout failure mode transition is an important
issue in weldability of a material [1–4,47–49]. Failure mode of
AISI420 welds is a competition between crack propagation through
FZ (i.e. IF mode) and necking in the base metal (i.e. PF mode). The
failure occurs in the manner which requires less load to occur. The peak
load in IF mode can be determined using Eq. (8). The peak load in PF
mode can be determined using Eq. (11) [1]:
PPF = πDtσBM (11)
In order to ensure pullout failure, the following inequality needs to
be satisfied:
PPF ≤ PIF ⇒ πDtσBM ≤ 1.44d t KC (12)
Therefore, the minimum fracture toughness of the welds required
to ensure PF mode can be estimated using following equation
(KC )min = 2.18 t σBM (13)
According to Eq. (13), the minimum fracture toughness required to
obtain PF mode during tensile-shear loading of 1.5 mm thick AISI420
with tensile strength of 566 MPa welds can be estimated as 47.8
MPam0.5. However, as it was determined previously, the KC of the weld
nugget is about 23.4 MPam0.5. Therefore, to obtain PF mode and
improve mechanical properties, the weld nugget fracture toughness
should significantly be improved. This can be achieved via design a
proper post weld in-situ tempering that sufficiently reduces the hard-
ness and enhances the fracture toughness of the FZ.
In addition, for a given FZ fracture toughness (i.e. for a given
material), using Eq. (12), a critical sheet thickness can be determined
below which the PF mode is guaranteed:
⎛ K ⎞2
tC = 0.21 ⎜ C ⎟
⎝ σBM ⎠ (14)
Using Eq. (12), the critical sheet thickness is calculated as 0.3 mm.
The validation of this calculation was not possible due to unavailability
of AISI420 sheets with thickness less than 0.3 mm. However, study on
the RSW of 0.5 mm AISI420 showed that all spot welds were failed in
IF mode [50]. This confirms that spot welds with very low fusion zone
fracture toughness are very susceptible to IF mode even at very thin
gauge sheet.
4. Conclusions
The failure characteristics of AISI420 martensitic stainless steel
resistance spot welds are investigated. The key factors controlling the
mechanical properties of the welds are determined. The following
conclusions can be drawn from this study:
(i) The resistance spot welds made on AISI420 exhibited consistent
interfacial failure during tensile-shear loading. This is due to very
high hardness of the fusion zone and heat affected zone which are
mainly consisted of hard martensite as well as sharp natural notch
at the sheet/sheet interface resulting in premature failure of the
joint with a low energy cleavage behavior.
(ii) Unlike other automotive steels spot welds, it was shown that the
peak load corresponding to interfacial failure of resistance spot
106
Materials Science & Engineering A 680 (2017) 97–107
welds made on AISI420 during tensile-shear loading is governed
by the fracture toughness of the fusion zone, rather than the
fusion zone hardness. The peak load of AISI420 martensitic
stainless steel resistance spot weld cannot be correlated with
fusion zone hardness. It is shown that the tensile-shear strength of
the AISI420 martensitic stainless steel resistance spot weld is
governed by sheet thickness, weld nugget size and weld nugget
fracture toughness.
(iii) The weld nugget fracture toughness of AISI420 martensitic
stainless steel was determined using a fracture mechanics con-
cept. The validation of the determined value for the fracture
toughness was verified in terms of geometry-independency and
small scale yielding criteria. Mathematical modeling showed that
there is a critical KCFZ which beyond that the pullout failure mode
is dominant during tensile-shear loading. This critical KCFZ which is
governed by FZ microstructure, is a function of sheet thickness
and tensile strength of the base metal. The critical KCFZ for
AISI420 martensitic stainless steel was determined as 47.8
MPm0.5 which is significantly higher than the KCFZ in the as-weld
condition (i.e. 23 MPam0.5). This calls for designing proper post
weld quench and temper heat treatment to improve the fracture
toughness of the fusion zone promoting pullout failure mode.
Acknowledgment
The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewer for his/her
helpful and constructive comments that greatly contributed to improv-
ing the final version of the paper.
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