A joint structure, includes: a first member including a high tensile strength steel; a second member including a high tensile strength steel and superposed on the first member; a surface soft layer formed on at least one of a superposition surface of the first member, on which the second member is superposed, and a superposition surface of the second member, on which the first member is superposed; a molten-solidified portion formed by melting and solidifying the first member and the second member; and a heat affected zone formed around the molten-solidified portion, in which the surface soft layer has a total thickness of 5 μm to 200 μm, and the molten-solidified portion has a carbon amount of 0.21 mass % or more, and a maximum Vickers hardness of the surface soft layer in the heat affected zone is 100 Hv to 500 Hv.

A method for producing a zinc or zinc-alloy coated steel sheet with a tensile strength higher than 900 MPa, for the fabrication of resistance spot welds containing in average not more than two Liquid Metal Embrittlement cracks per weld having a depth of 100 μm or more, with steps of providing a cold-rolled steel sheet, heating cold-rolled steel sheet up to a temperature T1 between 550° C. and Ac1+50° C. in a furnace zone with an atmosphere (A1) containing from 2 to 15% hydrogen by volume, so that the iron is not oxidized, then adding in the furnace atmosphere, water steam or oxygen with an injection flow rate Q higher than (0.07%/h×α), α being equal to 1 if said element is water steam or equal to 0.52 if said element is oxygen, at a temperature T≥T1, so to obtain an atmosphere (A2) with a dew point DP2 between −15° C. and the temperature Te of the iron/iron oxide equilibrium dew point, then heating the sheet from temperature T.sub.1 up to a temperature T.sub.2 between 720° C. and 1000° C. in a furnace zone under an atmosphere (A2) of nitrogen containing from 2 to 15% hydrogen and more than 0.1% CO by volume, with an oxygen partial pressure higher than 10.sup.−21 atm., wherein the duration to of heating of the sheet from temperature T.sub.1 up to the end of soaking at temperature T.sub.2 is between 100 and 500 s, soaking the sheet at T.sub.2, then cooling the sheet at a rate between 10 and 400° C./s, then coating the sheet with zinc or zinc-alloy coating.

A joint structure, includes: a first member including a high tensile strength steel; and a second member including a high tensile strength steel and superposed on the first member, the first member and the second member being resistance welded to each other, in which a gap between the first member and the second member is between 0 mm and 3 mm, a nugget is not formed at a joint portion between the first member and the second member, or when the nugget is formed at the joint portion between the first member and the second member, a diameter D1 of the nugget satisfies D1<5 mm, and a decarburized layer is provided on at least one of a superposition surface of the first member, on which the second member is superposed, and a superposition surface of the second member, on which the first member is superposed.

The present disclosure provides a method of resistance spot welding that can inhibit Liquid Metal Embrittlement-induced cracking in zinc-coated steel plates irrespective of the degrees of tensile strength. One aspect of the present disclosure provides a method of resistance spot welding. The method comprises welding a workpiece with a resistance spot welding apparatus. The workpiece includes two or more steel plates in an overlapping state. The two or more steel plates include at least one steel plate coated with zinc. The welding includes welding while compressing a high-tensile steel plate among the two or more steel plates in a direction intersecting a direction of a thickness of the high-tensile steel plate. The high-tensile steel plate has a tensile strength higher than a tensile strength of another steel plate among the two or more steel plates.

The present disclose provides a method of resistance spot welding that can inhibit Liquid Metal Embrittlement-induced cracking in zinc-coated steel plates irrespective of the plate thicknesses. One aspect of the present disclosure provides a method of resistance spot welding that includes welding a workpiece with a resistance spot welding apparatus. The workpiece includes two or more steel plates in an overlapping state. The two or more steel plates include at least one steel plate coated with zinc. The welding includes causing a cooling rate of a high-tensile steel plate among the two or more steel plates to be higher than a cooling rate of an other steel plate among the two or more steel plates. The high-tensile steel plate has a tensile strength higher than a tensile strength of the other steel plate.

A workpiece of Ti or a Ti alloy includes a surface with a coating layer of titanium nitride. A region of the surface includes a connection zone of a Ti—N solid solution alloy. A second Ti or Ti alloy workpiece is contacted with the connection zone, and a weld joint is formed across the connection zone with a resistance welding process. The weld joint extends into the first Ti workpiece and the second Ti workpiece.

A method for joining of at least two materials, non-weldable directly to each other with thermal joining processes in a lap joint configuration includes a two step sequence including a first step to apply a thermomechanical or mechanical surface protection layer on the surface of a (stainless) steel substrate and a second step where, a thermal joining process is used to weld the sprayed layer with an applied aluminum sheet without having brittle intermetallic phases in the whole material configuration.

An Al plated electric resistance welded steel pipe for hardening use suppressing the formation of scale to the inside of the plating layer while performing hot forming and an Al plated hollow member using that Al plated electric resistance welded steel pipe, wherein the Al plated electric resistance welded steel pipe for hardening use is comprised of a base material made of a tubular steel plate and having a predetermined chemical composition and an electric resistance welded zone provided at a seam portion of the steel plate and extending in a longitudinal direction of the steel plate, the base material is further provided with an intermetallic compound layer positioned on the surface of the steel plate and including an Al—Fe—Si-based intermetallic compound and an Al plating layer positioned on the surface of the intermetallic compound layer and containing Al and Si, and 70×X/D≤Y/t≤30 is satisfied, wherein X (μm) is a thickness of the intermetallic compound layer, Y (μm) is a thickness of the Al plating layer, t (mm) is a pipe thickness of the steel pipe, and D (mm) is an outside diameter of the steel pipe.

Methods for resistance welding, resistance-welded assemblies, and vehicles including resistance-welded assemblies are provided. The method includes providing a workpiece stack-up including first and second workpieces and an intermediate material located between the faying surfaces thereof. At least one of the first workpiece and the second workpiece is formed of a first metal alloy with a first concentration of an alloying element, and the intermediate material is formed of a second metal alloy of the first metal and a second concentration of the alloying element that is less than the first concentration. The method includes bringing electrodes into contact with the workpieces, passing an electrical current therebetween to form a molten weld pool, and cooling the molten weld pool into a weld nugget that forms all or part of a weld joint between the workpieces and has a composition that is a mixture of the workpieces and the intermediate material.

A steel sheet for the manufacture of a press hardened part is provided, having a composition of: 0.15%≤C≤0.22%, 3.5%≤Mn<4.2%, 0.001%≤Si≤1.5%, 0.020%≤Al≤0.9%, 0.001%≤Cr≤1%, 0.001%≤Mo≤0.3%, 0.001%≤Ti≤0.040%, 0.0003%≤B≤0.004%, 0.001%≤Nb≤0.060%, 0.001%≤N≤0.009%, 0.0005%≤S≤0.003%, 0.001%≤P≤0.020%. A microstructure has less than 50% ferrite, 1% to 20% retained austenite, cementite, such that the surface density of cementite particles larger than 60 nm is lower than 10{circumflex over ( )}7/mm.sup.2, and a complement of bainite and/or martensite, the retained austenite having an average Mn content of at least 1.1*Mn %. Press-hardened steel part obtained by hot forming the steel sheet, and manufacturing methods thereof.