An experimental study on improvement of joining strength of the spin drum seaming division in washing machine

There are being a lot of studies for achievement of high speed dehydration, high-strength and lightweight of washing machine in the latest washing machine business. It is essential that press-joining strength of spin drum seaming division is improved to attain that target. Generally, we are using mechanical press joining by seaming and TIG (tungsten inert gas) welding among part joint method. Mechanical press-joining method that is mainly using for stainless steel (STS430) drum have lots of merit that consumption of energy is low more than welding and production costs cut down and generation of the corrosion is solved by removing weld zone defect and materials having different properties are enable to join without special equipment. But, it is difficult to realize joint strength required at high speed operation because joint strength of mechanical press-joining method is low remarkably in comparison with welding. Also, there are a lot of analysis difficulties and very limited research is under way due to the dynamic factor such as multistage plastic working, elastic recovery, residual stress, etc. The results of this study show optimal joining condition for mechanical press joining by performing lots of tensile joining strength test with various specimen under multi-change of important design factor such as seaming width, bead area and bead depth, etc.