Aluminum to steel bonding or welding 2

[ornerynorsk]

Besides adhesive bonding or laser welding, what options, if any, exist for attaching plain carbon or 12L14 steel to 5052 or 3003 series aluminum. Roll crimping, threading or fastener methods are not suitable or practical for this application.

 

[metengr]

Try friction welding.

 

[Goahead]

Depending on configuration:
For plates: Explosion Welding
for tube on bar: Magnetic Pulse Welding

http://www.welding-advisers.com/

 

[swall]

My former employer made the propshafts for the all wheel drive version of the Aztec. The shaft was comprised of a 6061-T6 tube friction welded to a 1045 steel companion flange.

 

[DAVIDSTECKER]

If you are dealing with round tubing you could go with an interferance press fit. May involve heating one piece or freezing the other.
If its plate or strip and you need flexablity you might look into the double sided PVC tape that they use in semi-trailers. The stuff is perminate after 24 hours I believe.
I've tried some and have never been able to get the two pieces apart again.

 

[MOB1]

The aluminum industry uses a carbon steel/aluminium joint for the anodes stems in the pot cells. The joint is pre-manufactured by explosive welding. The joint is then completed by conventional welding of steel to steel and aluminum to aluminum.

 

[structor]

As one cannot weld the two so diffenet material direct, special bi-metal (Al+St) pieces/bars/plates are commercially available. They have been manufactured by explosive bonding, sometimes microscopic amounts of other metal layers have been added on the bonding for special properties. Anyhow, these bi-metal transition pieces act as adaptor between your parts; you weld your Al part to the Al-side of the piece, likewise your St part on the St-side of the piece. For example shipbuilding industry (esp. those building large passenger vessels and special craft) is widely using this kind of bi-metal parts for joining large aluminium structures to the steel hull, e.g. deckhouses, funnels or large upper deck structures of aluminium (Al used for weight saving purposes only) to the steel hull structures. Also the same type of connecting techniques is used in gas ships having their spherical cryogenic cargo tanks made of aluminium (Moss-type LNG Carriers) where the huge tanks are fixed to the steel foundation ("skirt") by welding which is possible only by such large bi-metal bars. The Al. gas tanks are maybe examples of the largest bi-metal transition joints (Al and steel parts are 40 to 70 mm by thickness, the transition pieces being up to 100 x 200 mm by cross section) whereas the smallest 'sizes' are for connecting material thicknesses of some millimetres only, the bi-matal bar then e.g. 10 x 20 mm. Round pad-like bi-metal transition pieces are available for welding an aluminium pillar onto a steel deck, so applications are many. The availability of bi-metal pieces (which allows welding) has superseded bolted connections between Al and steel which would require in most cases (at least in shipbuilding) a galvanic insulation between the different metals against corrosion. Bi-metal joints do not suffer from any kind of galvanic corrosion.