Method for evaluating susceptibility to liquid metal embrittlement cracking in resistance spot welded portion of steel sheet

A method for evaluating susceptibility to liquid metal embrittlement cracking in a resistance spot welded portion of a steel sheet, the method comprising:

• a welding process of overlapping a first steel sheet and a second steel sheet, one or both of which are galvanized steel sheets, without an intervening gap to obtain a sheet combination, sandwiching the sheet combination between a pair of electrodes having an axial direction perpendicular to main surfaces of the first steel sheet and the second steel sheet, and applying current and pressure via the electrodes to perform resistance spot welding;
• a strain applying process of applying one or both of bending strain and tensile strain controlled to a defined amount of strain to a welded portion of the second steel sheet at the same time as or after the end of the current application of the resistance spot welding;
• an observation process of observing the welded portion of the second steel sheet to ascertain the presence or absence of liquid metal embrittlement cracking as an observation result;
• and
• an evaluation process of evaluating susceptibility to liquid metal embrittlement cracking in the welded portion of the second steel sheet based on the observation result.