Author : Manjunath R. Rawal and K. H.Inamdar

Optimization of process parameters and their levels are essential from time and economical constraints, which fully utilizes the resources and optimize the output quality of product/process required. In many industries, such as the automobile, domestic appliances, air craft and space craft fabrications, Resistance spot welding (RSW) is a major sheet metal joining process. Resistance spot weld joining process widely used for the fabrication of sheet metal assemblies. In any car, there are 3000-6000 spot welds which show the level importance of the resistance spot welding. It is a complicated process, which involves interactions of thermal, mechanical, electrical and metallurgical phenomenon. Controlling the welding parameters plays an important role on the quality of the weld. In this paper, various optimization techniques are discussed and the use of the Taguchi method to determine the optimum process parameters is reported. This is because the Taguchi method is a systematic application of design and analysis of experiments for the purpose of designing and improving product quality at the design stage. Welding parameters settings were determined by using the Taguchi experimental design method. The level of importance of the welding parameters on the tensile shear strength is determined by using analysis of variance (ANOVA).

Keywords: Resistance Spot Welding (RSW), Taguchi method, Cause and effect diagram, ANN, optimization.