Effect of Coating Type on Spot Welding of Galvanized Steel

Steels coated with zinc and zinc-iron alloys are being increasingly used by the car industry due to their excellent corrosion resistance and good workability. Spot welding of coated steels has the disadvantage of increasing electrodes wear when compared to uncoated steels. Such wear is caused by the reaction of the zinc coating with the copper of the electrode forming an alloy Zn-Cu (brass). Spot welding tests were carried out in IF steels coated in an industrial hot-dip galvanizing line with pure zinc (GI) and a Zn-Fe alloy (GA). Three welding joints were evaluated: GA/GA, GI/GI and GA/GI Dynamic weldability diagrams and electrode life were determined for each kind of joint. The results indicated that welding current increased more quickly with the number of welds for the GI/GI joints. This result was associated with the fastest contamination of the electrode by zinc. For the GA/GI joints, welding current levels for adequate welding increased faster than for GA/GA joints but slower than for GI/GI joints. In general, the spot welding tests with GA/GI joints presented results closer to that of the GA/GA joints than to the spot welding tests with GI/GI joints. Such results showed the positive influence of the GA coating, even for joints including both coatings to improve the spot weldability of zinc coated steels.