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By C.P. Nex and R.A. Smith, originally presented at the 11th International Conference of Experimental Mechanics, Oxford, UK, August 24-28, 1998. As part of a wide ranging investigation into the structural performance of spot welds in austenitic nickel-containing stainless steel, the behaviour of simple structures subjected to drop weight test, generating strain rates in the range 10s- 1 100s-1 has been investigated. The motivation for this work arose from a report of a collision of railway vehicles in which stainless steel spot-welds were believed to have performed unsatisfactorily under impact. A programme of experimental work has shown that, in general, stainless steel structural sections, with appropriately sized and positioned spot-welds, can absorb significantly more energy than carbon steel structures and, moreover, the performance can be adequately predicted by non-linear finite element modelling. Brief mention is also made of comparisons between the behaviour of spot-welds and laser-welds; the latter are particulary useful since access from only one side is required to manufacture the joint.

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