Basic characteristics of CO 2 laser welded 800 MPa class TRIP steel such as defects, microstructure, mechanical properties and formability was investigated. Bead-on-plate welding was carried out under various power, welding speed and shield gas. Porosity fraction reduced with increasing the welding speed and using Ar-He mixed shield gas compared to Ar gas. The maximum hardness was obtained at the weld metal as well as HAZ near the weld metal. The value was the same regardless of welding speed and was nearly equal to that of water quenched raw metal. In the perpendicular tensile test to the weld axis, the joints produced at optimum condition were fractured at the base metal and the tensile property was nearly equal to the raw metal. In a parallel tensile test, the strength of the joints was higher than that of the base metal, but elongation was found to be lower than that of the raw metal because a crack was initiated in the bead at the strength levels corresponding to the tensile strength of the base metal and was propagated perpendicular to tensile direction. Elongation and formability were further improved using low power or ArϩHe mixed gas compared to high power or Ar gas.

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Al-Si coated Boron steel and Zn coated DP steel were welded using DISK laser and the microstructure and hardness of the weld were investigated. Full penetration was obtained, when the welding speed was lower than 4m/min. In the specimen welded with laser power of 3 kW and welding speed of 2 m/min, the hardness was the highest in the heat affect zone in the boron steel (HAZ-B) and that of the heat affect zone in the DP steel (HAZ-D) was lower than HAZ-B. The hardness of fusion zone was in between those of HAZ-B and HAZ-D. The decreased hardness from each HAZ to base metal(BM) could be explained that ferrite contents increases when access to the BM. The variation of hardness in the welds could be explained by the difference of microstructure, that is, full martensite in HAZ-B, mixture of martensite and bainite in the fusion zone, and the mixture of martensite, ferrite and bainite in HAZ-D.

In this study, effect of Si content on nugget diameter in electric resistance spot welded dual-phase(DP) steel was investigated. The cold rolled DP steels with different Si content (0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0 wt.%) were used and thickness of those sheet was 1.2mm. With increasing Si content, nugget diameter was increased at the same welding current. This is attributed to increase of heat input result from high resistivity. Also, nugget diameter was increased with an increase in Si content for the same heat input. For this reason, the melting point of DP steel is lowered with an increase in the Si content. And solid DP steel can easily be transformed to a liquid phase because the low melting point. Finally, a prediction formula for the nugget diameter(N.D.) could be obtained in terms of heat input(Q) and melting point(M.P) as follows: N.D.(mm) = 0.11Q(J)-0.0031 M.P.(℃) + 0.32

In this study, the effect of the welding current on the hardness characteristics and microstructure in the resistance spot welding of 1GPa grade cold-rolled DP steel was investigated, Also, correlation between the hardness and microstructure was discussed. In spite of the change in the welding current, the hardness distributions near weld was similar. the hardness in the HAZ and the fusion zone was higher than that of the base metal and the hardness in the fusion zone was variated with the location. Especially, the hardness of HAZ adjacent to the base metal showed maximum value, and softening zone in the base metal adjacent to HAZ was found. With the increasing of welding current, there were no difference in maximum hardness and average hardness in the fusion zone were, but the hardness of the softening zone reduced. The difference in the hardness in each location of weld due to grain size of prior austenite. The softening of the base metal occurred by tempering of the martensite.