One of the problems that I have found over the years is that the quality of data for the strength of welded steel and aluminum is generally low. There is a table in Bruhn that gives conservative allowables for some steels but there is not much else that gives data you can use in a certification analysis. As background work for the textbook chapter on welded joints I have started to collect some NACA and NASA reports that go into more detail and includes some data on aluminum welds as well. These few documents can be found here.
There is also some data in section 8 of the Mil-Hdnk-5 or MMPDS. This data only includes spot welding data for aluminum alloys and the combination of spot welding and aircraft structure is generally seen as a bad thing and to be avoided……
If you have any data from a credible source for weld strengths that can be referenced drop me a line and let me know.
Happy Stressing.
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The Atlas Centaur rocket structure used to be made from spot-welded 300 series stainless steel sheets. The Titan Centaur still may be.
The Aluminum Handbook has welded Aluminum alloy strengths, although you may be looking for open source data.
Yes – we restrict ourselves to public domain only. I have ended up looking through many AGARD papers to no avail, but at least I have a bunch of content to post….spot welding has been used in aerospace structures. It was used for the Vickers Valiant and rumor has it that it contributed to its early retirement from service, I would be interested if you know of any successful ‘long life’ applications of spot welding in aerospace
Woww just what I was looking for, regards for posting..