More high strength steel （HSS） sheets are being applied in the automobile industry to improve safety and fuel efficiency. When HSS is spot welded, the strength of the welded-joint is usually determined by the attributes of the weld nugget. However, it is difficult to obtain the circular nugget and to establish the relationship between the weld attributes and welding quality because of a large number of variables and experimental uncertainty. In the paper, the numerical analysis model of tensile-shear strength test for HSS spot welds was established. And the critical ellipticity of the elliptical spot weld was determined through finite element analysis. Quantitative relationship between elliptical weld attributes and weld strength was investigated statistically using the Latin hypercube and regression analysis method. The sheet thickness, nugget eUipticity, hardness radio and yield strength have the most influential attributes in affecting welding quality. The research results can be used as a guideline for HSS resistance spot welding design.
Magnetohydrodynamic behaviors in a resistance spot weld nugget under different welding currents are investigated based on a multiphysics coupled numerical model, which incorporates phase change and variable electrical contact resis-tances at faying surface and electrode-workpiece contact surface. The patterns of the flow field and thermal field at the end of the welding phase under different welding currents are obtained. The evolutions of fluid flow and heat transfer during the whole welding process are also revealed systematically. The analysis results are also compared with a traditional electrothermal coupled model to obtain the quantitative effects of the magnetohydrodynamic behaviors on the resistance spot weld nugget formation.
