Master's thesis of Engineering: Development of a universal spot weld model for automotive FEM crash simulations

This thesis deals with the finite element simulation of spot welded joint in crash analysis. Spot welding is a very common joining process in the automotive industry. It is cost effective and it provides a very fast production rate of automotive body components. Despite this advantage, spot welds are very susceptible to various types of loading conditions. Therefore they are prone to failure, if not designed properly, during their service life time. Therefore it is very important to understand the behaviour of spot welds and their failure characteristics.