Correlating Variations in the Dynamic Resistance Signature to Weld Strength in Resistance Spot Welding Using Principal Component Analysis

Traditional quality control of resistance spot welds by analysis of the dynamic resistance signature (DRS) relies on manual feature selection to reduce the dimensionality prior to analysis. Manually selected features of the DRS may contain information that is not directly correlated to strength, reducing the accuracy of any classification performed. In this paper, correlations between the DRS and weld strength are automatically detected by calculating correlation coefficients between weld strength and principal components of the DRS. The key features of the DRS that correlate to weld strength are identified in a systematic manner. Systematically identifying relevant features of the DRS is useful as the correlations between weld strength and DRS may vary with process parameters.