Characteristic of weld line movements for the deep drawing with drawbeads of tailor-welded blanks

Thr purpose of this study is to investigate the weld line. movements of las er welded tailored sheets during the jeep drawing process with and without round drawbeads. Square blanks have been used and they have three different weld line locations. The differences of the weld line movements and the te ndencies of the thickness strain distributions were investigated by experim ental and analytical methods. With consideration for the amount of movement and for the thickness strain in the central and diagonal direction, the la rger are the values, the longer are the distances from the center line is t he initial weld lines. The drawbead adds additional restraining forces to t he blank, so that the movement of the weld line is reduced and the thicknes s strain distribution is changed. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.