Robust and reliable simulation of resistance pressure welding processes

Resistance pressure welding is considered to be one of the most stable and economically viable mechanical joining techniques. Nevertheless, in industrial practice it still suffers from a high sensitivity to often uncontrollable and variable process conditions, such as electrode wear, misalignment, surface condition, ... Using a grey-box approach, real-time quality monitoring can be developed for these short dynamic processes. This implies investigating the optimal combination of black box and white box modelling strategies, in order to gain insight in quality dependent parameters and phenomena, taking into account the highly uncertain and variable conditions found in a typical industrial setting. The research in this PhD focuses on the development of white box modelling of the RPW processes and its validation. This allows predicting the weld quality of both processes and extrapolations thereof, as well as gaining insight into relevant underlying quality-dependent parameters and phenomena.