A power supply unit for a resistance welding apparatus, said power supply unit comprising a converter circuit adapted to convert an alternating power supply current, AC, applied via a residual current protection circuit to an input of said converter circuit into a pulsed electrical current supplied from an output of said converter circuit to a primary coil of a transformer of said resistance welding apparatus, and at least one switching element provided between the output of said converter circuit and protective earth.

Provided is a setting assistance device capable of informing that which welding condition should be corrected with a value as the limit in order to achieve the target quality.

In a setting assistance device (40) of a welding condition which is a condition in welding, an input receiving unit (42) accepts designation of the target quality in welding, and a welding condition information output unit (44) outputs an item of a welding condition to be corrected to achieve the target quality, and limit information indicating a limit of a value which can be taken by the item of the welding condition to achieve the target quality, in accordance with the acceptance of the designation of the target quality by the input receiving unit (42).

The present disclosure provides a system for printing at least a portion of a three-dimensional (3D) object. The system may comprise a source of at least one feedstock, a support for supporting at least a portion of the 3D object, a feeder for directing at least one feedstock from the source towards the support, and a power supply for supplying electrical current. The system may comprise a controller operatively coupled to the power supply. The controller may receive a computational representation of the 3D object. The controller may direct the at least one feedstock through a feeder towards the support and may direct electrical current through the at least one feedstock and into the support. The controller may subject such feedstock to Joule heating such that at least a portion of such feedstock may deposit adjacent to the support, thereby printing the 3D object in accordance with the computational representation.

A spot welding method includes supplying a welding current having a pulse-shaped waveform to a workpiece by alternately executing a step of maintaining the welding current within a set peak current range and a step of decreasing the welding current from the peak current range toward a bottom current and then increasing the welding current toward the peak current range when an effective value of the welding current reaches a set target range for a plurality of cycles. The spatter detection method includes measuring a pulse width IW(1), IW(2), . . . in each cycle of the pulse-shaped waveform and detecting the occurrence of spatter when a pulse width difference D(M)=IW(M)IW(M1) between a pulse width IW(M) in a target cycle (M-th cycle) and a pulse width IW(M1) in a cycle immediately before the target cycle exceeds a width threshold value Dth.

The disclosure relates to a power component for providing an electric current, having plates aligned parallel to one another which are connected to the current inputs and the current outputs of power semiconductors embedded in a component carrier. High currents, for example for resistance welding, can thereby be controlled without excessive heat losses resulting in an increase in temperature of the entire arrangement and thereby in a reduction of the service life.

A resistance spot welding device that joins predetermined parts to be welded includes: a storage configured to store a time variation of an instantaneous amount of heat generated per unit volume and a cumulative amount of heat generated per unit volume in test welding that precedes actual welding; and an adaptive controller and an electrode force controller configured to, in the case where the time variation of the instantaneous amount of heat generated per unit volume in the actual welding differs from a time variation curve stored as the target value, respectively control the current or a voltage during current passage and the electrode force to the parts to be welded to compensate for the difference within a remaining welding time so that the cumulative amount of heat generated per unit volume in the actual welding matches the cumulative amount of heat generated per unit volume stored in the storage.

A spot welding method includes supplying a welding current having a pulse-shaped waveform to a workpiece by alternately executing a step of maintaining the welding current within a set peak current range and a step of decreasing the welding current from the peak current range toward a bottom current and then increasing the welding current toward the peak current range when an effective value of the welding current reaches a set target range for a plurality of cycles. The spatter detection method includes measuring a pulse width IW(1), IW(2), . . . in each cycle of the pulse-shaped waveform and detecting the occurrence of spatter when a pulse width difference D(M)=IW(M)IW(M1) between a pulse width IW(M) in a target cycle (M-th cycle) and a pulse width IW(M1) in a cycle immediately before the target cycle exceeds a width threshold value Dth.

This spot welding method is a method for joining workpieces being a layered body of three or more metal sheets by supplying welding current. The welding current has a pulse-like waveform wherein a peak state in which the current reaches or is maintained to be within a set peak current range and a non-peak state in which the current is lowered from the peak current range to a set bottom current, and is then increased toward the peak current range again are alternately achieved. In the non-peak state, in the case where an effective value Irms of the welding current is lowered, and reaches a predetermined effective value target range, a current control process for increasing the welding current toward the peak current range is started.

A nugget diameter estimation method of a welded material bonded by resistance spot welding includes: a reference welding process of bonding a test material while measuring an expansion amount of the test material; a nugget diameter measurement process of measuring a nugget diameter of the bonded test material; a relational formula determination process of determining a relational formula between the measured nugget diameter of the test material and the expansion amount of the test material; a main welding process of measuring an expansion amount of the welded material, and bonding the welded material through energization while pressurizing the welded material with the pair of electrodes; and a nugget diameter estimation process of estimating a nugget diameter of the bonded welded material using the expansion amount of the welded material and the relational formula.

The present application provides a method for weld quality detection comprising: applying a detection voltage to a weld during a cooling phase after the cut-off of the metal material welding current; detecting a detection current corresponding to the detection voltage applied to the weld; calculating continuous values of resistance of the weld during the cooling phase based on the detection voltage and the detection current; and determining whether a welding defect exists at the weld based on an initial value, an intermediate value, and an end value of the resistance. By measuring and analyzing the resistance variation in the melting core cooling phase and using the relationship between the resistivity of metal material and temperature to indirectly characterize the heat stored in weld nugget, the detection and evaluation of the quality of resistance spot welding can be realized.