TAILOR WELDED BLANKS

Jithesh.E
04107

 Fuel conservation policy

Safety mandates
Environmental concerns

What are Tailor Welded

Blanks?

What are Tailor welded

blanks?
Combining various steel options into a
welded blank to enable product and
manufacturing engineers to tailor the
blank so that steels best properties were
located precisely within the part where
they were needed.

Steps Involved
Different blanks are blanked out
from sheet metal.
Nesting of blanks.
Laser welding.
Forming

Pre-welding considerations
Blanking and notching
Handling
Stacking
Shipping

Blank production Processes for

Tailor Welded Blanks
Before welding, most blanks will be
produced in two ways:
As rough blanks from shear line
processing.
As pattern blanks from die and
press processing.

Types of welding considered

for TWB
Laser Beam
Resistance Mash Seam
High-Frequency Induction
Electron Beam (non-vacuum)

The most prevalent welding

processes in use today are the
laser beam butt-welding and
resistance mash seam lap
welding.

Types of laser welding

involved
Laser welding with fixed optics
Laser welding with moving optics (X axis
or X and Y axes)
Laser welding with filler wire
Laser beam weaving

Laser Welding of Blanks

Normal cut edge not possible for

laser beam welding

With low carbon content filler wire,

it is possible to decrease the
hardness of the welded bead

Beam Weaving

Which welding when?

Potential Benefits of Tailor

Welded Blanks

Fewer parts
Fewer dies
Fewer spot welds
Reduced design and development time
Lower manufacturing costs
Less material input, better utilization of steel
Weight reduction
Improved dimensional accuracy
Improved structural integrity
Improved safety
Increased offal utilization and reduced scrap

Just guess how many TWB are

being used in a passenger car?

Center Pillar

A Pillar Reinforcement
Wind Shield Frame

Deck lid

Wheel house panel

Motor
Compartment
rail

Bumper
Reinforcement

Body side Frame

Frame Rail
Rear
door inner
Floor pan
Front door inner

Product design Considerations

Part integration and tooling cost
reduction
Improved material yield
Weight reduction
Improved structure

Part integration and tooling

cost reduction
By integrating sheets of different
strengths and thicknesses into a tailor
welded blank, many separate parts and
reinforcements can be eliminated. This
has a significant impact on tooling
investment and operational costs
Toyota reports the elimination of 38
dies by using tailor welded blanks with
different strength components for the
same application in a Lexus model

Improved structure
In addition to improved cost benefits,
tailor welded blanks can provide on
increase in structural stiffness
resulting from the reinforcements being
integrated into the structure and the
structure itself having continuous weld
joints rather than the components being
attached with localized spot welds

Improved material yield

Parts which are rectangular or
trapezoidal in shape (such as roof
panels or hood outers) will have a
higher yield than parts that require
irregular pattern shaped blanks.
Yield rates as low as 29 percent
have been documented for irregular
parts.

Statistics

Weight Reduction
A weight reduction of 19.7 pounds
achieved on the Ford Taurus if
tailor welded blanks were used for
as few as 10 parts.

Other salient features

Corrosion
The corrosion resistance of a part
made from a tailor welded blank will
be greatly influenced by sheet steel
and weld surface conditions,
including paint adhesion. The
corrosion performance ultimately is
also a function of the width of the
weld and heat-affected zone

Sealing
An often overlooked benefit of tailor
welded blanks is the fact that no sealing
compounds are needed at these weld
joints. The weld is continuous, as
opposed to resistance spot welds, which
are intermittent. Savings result from
the elimination of sealing investment
costs and sealing operations. In addition,
weight savings and environmental
benefits also may be achieved

Location of welding
It is advisable to avoid placing
the weld directly in stretch
flange areas (e.g., corners of
window or door openings.)

Nesting of blanks

Preferred designs for Welding

How it a TWB fails?

Blank outline

Draw die/
Punch line

Weld line
Before draw
Weld line
After draw

Formability checking
The formability of welds for
tailor welded blanks has been
measured with tensile tests,
limiting dome height and other
simulative tests, hydraulic bulge
tests and hole expansion tests.

Failure Modes for Tailor-Welded

Blanks

Variations of Total Tensile Elongation

with Weld Speed for Various Welds

Schematic of the Tooling for the

Formability Test

What demands for TWB?

Its greatest potential lies in the area of
with different thicknesses, coatings and
material grades.
Pressure for tailor-welded blanks comes
largely from the demands for lighter,
stronger, more complicated vehicle
designs planned for future years
Reduced Weight in Vehicle
Improved Assembly (Hemming)

Growth!
20 million tailor-welded blanks in 1999 to more
than 90 million in 2005,
GM has one of the largest tailor-welded blank
volume applications anywhere -- the GMT 800
light-truck platform that uses these specialty
blanks for the side frames
Audi's new Lamborghini Gallardo with the
world's first production ready aluminum tailor
welded blank designed to further reduce
vehicle body weight and assembly costs

Growth (Contd)
Vehicle manufacturers are today
increasingly turning to tailor welded
blanks to help increase structural
integrity while reducing vehicle
component weight for lower fuel
consumption and CO2 emissions

Thank You

Resistance Mash Seam Welding

Resistance mash seam tailor welded blanks
have an overlap seam joint that is 10-50
percent thicker than the thicker of the
materials and a heat-affected zone
approximately twice the width of the weld.
The reduction of thickness at the joint is
limited by the necessity to avoid weld current
shunting, depending on the gauge of the
materials.

The thickened joint can be reduced to about 10

percent more than the heavier gauge material by
post-weld planishing.
The planishing process involves compressing the
weld joint between steel rollers. This can be done
immediately after welding at a temperature above
recrystallization (about 550C/1000F for sheet
steel) as hot planishing or after the weld has
cooled as cold planishing.
Hot planishing has better formability
characteristics, but coated sheet steels can be a
problem for this process due to coating pick-up on
the planishing rollers.

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Laser Beam Welding

The laser beam tailor welded blank has a
butt-welded joint with a slight concavity at
the joint with a narrower (about 1.0 mm/0.04
inch) heat-affected zone. Minimizing
concavity of the weld joint is critical to good
formability and mechanical properties.
Minimum concavity in the weld joint is usually
achieved by precision shearing the blank
edges to be welded. A good fit up prior to
welding and a laser beam alignment with
respect to the joint are important for a good
laser weld.

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When welding speed is reduced!

High-Frequency Induction
Welding
This type of weld, developed for tailor welded blanks
by Elva Induction and Volvo, is a butt-upset joint
process that has a thickening at the joint and a heataffected zone similar in width to the resistance mash
seam weld. Grinding the joint can remove the
thickened growth to improve fit up in assemblies.
Induction welding has a faster cycle time and lower
operating costs than laser beam or resistance mash
seam welding processes, according to Volvo, codeveloped of the process. Volvo personnel indicate
these factors could make this type of weld joint a
viable alternative to some resistance mash seam and
laser beam welding applications in the future

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Frame Rail

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Bumper reinforcement

Front inner panel

Motor compartment

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Bibliography
Tailor welded blanks manufacturing
manual.
www.autosteel.org