The medium Mn steels are gaining increasing attention due to their excellent combination of mechanical properties and material cost. A cold-rolled 0.1C5Mn medium Mn steel with a ferrite matrix plus metastable austenite duplex microstructure was resistance spot-welded with various welding currents and times. The nugget size rose with the increase of heat input, but when the welding current exceeded the critical value, the tensile-shear load increased slowly and became unstable due to metal expulsion. The fusion zone exhibited a lath martensite microstructure, and the heat-affected zone was composed of a ferrite/martensite matrix with retained austenite. The volume fraction of retained austenite decreased gradually from the base metal to the fusion zone, while the microhardness presented a reverse varying trend. Interfacial failure occurred along the interface of the steel sheets with lower loading capacity. Sufficient heat input along with serious expulsion brought about high stress concentration around the weld nugget, and the joint failed in partial interfacial mode. Pull-out failure was absent in this study.

DP980 steels were joined using fiber laser welding. The welded joint was characterized in terms of hardness distribution and tensile behavior at room temperature, 150 ℃, and 300 ℃, respectively. The fine-grained martensite in supercritical heat affected zone (HAZ) resulted in the highest hardness (428 Hv), while the tempered martensite contributed to the hardness decreasing (‒31 Hv). Both the ultimate tensile strength and yield strength of the base metal and welded joint decreased at 150 ℃, and then increased at 300 ℃ due to dynamic strain aging (DSA). The welded joint exhibited slightly higher yield strength and lower elongation at all the test temperatures compared to base metal due to the hardened fusion zone. The energy absorption reduced slightly with increasing temperature both for base metal and welded joint, and the weld posed a minor effect on the energy absorption. Deformation was one of the requirements for DSA effect. DSA enhanced the hardness of base metal (+78 Hv) and softened zone (+53 Hv). HAZ was not softened enough to become the weakest position during tensile test.