RESISTANCE MASH WELDING FOR

JOINING OF COPPER CONDUCTORS

FOR ELECTRIC MOTORS
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CONTENT
1.Introduction
2.Objective
3.Experimental plan
4.Experimental approach
5.Evaluation of welded joints
6.Process analysis
7.Results
8.Conclusion
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1.INTRODUCTION
Vehicle electrification requires efficient
motors with increased power and
minimized losses.
While there are other forms of losses in
the motor , minimizing resistive losses is
crucial to boosting motor efficiency.
Bar wound stators have best packing
density and has maximum conductive
metal area.

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Cont..
Individual pieces of rectangular solid piece
copper are bent into hairpin shape and joined
together to create required electrical circuit.
Joining of copper can be complicated by the
materials very high thermal conductivity.
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2.OBJECTIVE
To identify and develop copper joining process
to achieve high quality copper to copper joints
with a minimum of time, energy, and applied
force.
To assess the influence of variations in wire to
wire alignment on weld strength
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3. EXPERIMENTAL PLAN
Resistance Mash Welding (RMW) joints are made
using a conventional spot welding machine with a
fast follow up head.
C101 copper wires with rectangular cross section
3.44mm x 3.66 mm were used.
A pneumatic spot welding machine was used.

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Two styles of electrodes were used:
1. A 16mm diameter flat faced electrode.
2. A non-standard chisel faced electrode.
The electrode were produced from RWMA Class
20 AL-60 material with good anti-sticking and
electrical conductivity properties.
A fast-follow-up head was used in the machine to
maintain force on the wires due to rapid softening
and collapse of the wires during welding.
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4.EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH
Iterative tests were performed to obtain the
optimum process parameters and system design.

Variables manipulated:
Weld and forge forces
Timing between weld and forge initiation
Weld current and time
Pre-welding parameters
Anneal(pulse welding) parameters
Cool times
Placement of wires relative to the chisel tip location
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Cont..
For parallel wire joints:
Variations in wire overlap
Angular alignment
Weld end position with respect to electrode face position
were studied.
For cross wire joints variation was studied at
three percentages of full wire extension.



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5.EVALUATION OF WELDED JOINTS
A weld schedule that achieved
High average peak strengths
A relatively small minimum to maximum range
Final wire thickness greater than 2mm
was considered acceptable.

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6. PROCESS ANALYSIS
In RMW a multistep process was developed
using control of applied force and current to
manage the temperature and deformation of
wires during the joining process.
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Resistance heating in a spot welder occurs when
current flows through the spot welding gun into
the base metal, across the faying interface, into the
second piece of base metal and back to ground
through remainder of gun structure.
The low weld force levels increased the heat
generation at the faying surface without collapsing
the joint.
After heating the weld zone to forging
temperature, forge force applied provided the
deformation needed to strain the heated metal and
produce a forge bond.
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7.RESULTS
Cross-wire weld
Flat faced electrodes were used.




Achieved tensile strength values between 1.44 and 1.60
KN.
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Cont..

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Parallel-wire weld
Using the same parameters tensile strength was
between 540 and 800N
Using the special trapezoidal designed tip the weld
tensile strengths were between 780N and 1.15KN

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Cont..
The strongest joints were generally produced
by the standard condition(Just under 1200N).
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Cont..
The average weld thickness was about 2.5mm.
The average joint width for the standard
condition was about 7mm.
The wire extension of the final weld joint with
the standard condition of about 3.5mm
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Cont..
For parallel-wire geometry, a critical value of
2.5mm final joint thickness was observed to
produce optimum weld tensile strength.
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8.CONCLUSION
For the parallel wire geometry, joints with
acceptable strength can be produced by the
following :
The standard condition i.e., properly aligned
10% width lateral misalignment
Short extension
-15% angular misalignments
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Cont..
The cross-wire joint geometries appeared to
provide sufficient process capability, providing
no insulation was entrapped in the weld joint.

In a properly controlled process, means of
producing overheating of the weld joint can
be avoided.

Smooth fast-follow-up and weld force head
motions were required to prevent collapse of
the wires during welding.
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THANK YOU !
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