The performance characteristics (i.e., static, dynamic, crash, etc.) of a spot welded structure are strongly influenced by the number and the locations of the resistance spot welds. The design problem requires the number and locations of spot welds to be optimized so as to obtain reasonable trade-offs between manufacturing costs and structural performances. An optimization procedure is proposed which iteratively adds and removes spot welds in order to correct for approximations made in the iterative process. Moreover, a robustness indicator is formulated that allows to analyze the impact of the number of defective or broken spot welds on the system performance. This indicator provides a useful decision making tool for deciding both how many spot welds should be inspected following assembly as well as pointing to a small number of critical spot welds that should be reinforced. The proposed methodology will be illustrated on a full body-in-white structure.
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