Welding ALUMINUM to STEEL...

There seems to be quite a few companies claiming this tech as thier own. Boeing just had this in thier company paper. I also remember reading somewhere that a group in the UK were the first to invent the technology. Regardless, it will be interesting to see what kind of applications they find for it.

http://www.boeing.com/news/frontiers/archive/2004/september/i_tt.html

 

the welding that is done when you Spin one piece fast, then ram it into the other is called, "Inertia Welding"

I run a inertia welder here at work, at Bobcat. we weld all of our Ends on our Hydraulic Cylinder shafts this way, and we 2 piece make our Transmission input shafts this way so we can have Dead end internal splines, by broaching a part then intertia welding it to the other main part.

when you cut said welded part in half, you cannot tell they were two pieces, they are perfectly welded together nop seam no nothing, and is actually stronger at the weld then a 1 piece said BILLIT part.

~Aaron

 

we had an old fart of a welding engineer in one of the shops I worked at when just starting in welding he had a gag he'd pull on people in the shop all the time.He'd get a big blob of weld on top of his workbench then real quick stick an empty aluminum soda can on it.This guy would get that can to weld to the steel bench every time!He would use the same kind of soda can as the guy being pranked because after he welded it to the bench he'd fill it up and tell the guy he bought him a soda. Just go grab it off my bench I forgot it.Then we'd all watch the reactions because none of us were going to clue the newbie in to this stunt! Ive tried this stunt a hunded times and never can get that damded can to stick!

 

The process is called explosive welding. It uses an explosion to propel one piece into another at supersonic speeds. The bond is formed instantly. It is used to join dissimilar metals, such as alum to steel. I have a part at work that is explosive welded, sorry I can't go into details on the materials or application, but the process uses ANFO (ammonium nitrate fuel oil) otherwise known as fertilizer bomb for the explosive. The cross-section of the joint actually has a wave pattern, it is really neat to see.

 

Just last night we were looking at an old 5 spoke "mag" wheel - you know the 2 piece ones that were notorious for blowing apart. Curiosity made us wonder how they attached the halves - fully expecting to see rivets we were rather surprised when we saw what appeared to be plain old weld beads at the transition point between the steel and aluminum. So it appears that they were using this process LONG ago. NOT FSW but the concept of welding aluminum to steel.