Methods for inspection of press-hardening steel surfaces prior to spot-welding for improved welding quality

Abstract

A method for inspecting a component made of press-hardening steel prior to resistance spot welding of the component includes performing non-destructive testing of the component made of press-hardening steel after hot stamping to determine a plurality of characteristics for the component. The non-destructive testing comprises at least one of image processing, electromagnetic analysis, and elemental analysis of the component. The method includes using a model correlating values of the characteristics to acceptable weld quality or rejected weld quality and predicting acceptable weld quality or rejected weld quality of the component prior to resistance spot welding of the component; resistance spot welding the component if the model predicts acceptable weld quality; and not resistance spot welding the component if the model predicts rejected weld quality.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.