Publication Date

2015

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

First Advisor

Sciammarella, F. M. (Federico M.)

Degree Name

M.S. (Master of Science)

Legacy Department

Department of Mechanical Engineering

LCSH

Mechanical engineering; Electric welding--Research; Steel--Welding--Research; Protective coatings--Research; Paint--Research

Abstract

Welding paint-coated steels is always a challenging task to perform because most forms of sheet metal come coated with a non-weldable primer. Though there are many welding processes, spot welding is more frequently used because of the economic advantages like portability, no filler material requirement, easy operation, faster performance, and higher accuracy. Developing a rapid and efficient paint removal process, experiments were conducted in the lab using a continuous-wave IPG laser to ablate paint where welding will occur. Transient thermal analysis in ANSYS APDL was used to quantify the paint ablation parameters and to determine the thermal profile caused by the laser energy. FEM results were compared to physical experiments conducted in the lab. Spot welding was carried out for the laser ablated samples using a MILLER LMSW 52-T welder. MTS Quantitative Pull Tests and metallography study was done to determine the optimum weld properties and over all weld quality.

Comments

Advisors: Federico Sciammerella.||Committee members: Matthew J. Gonser; Pradip Majumdar.

Extent

91 pages

Language

eng

Publisher

Northern Illinois University

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Rights Statement 2

NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.

Media Type

Text

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