A State-of-the-Art Review on Direct Welding of Polymer to Metal for Structural Applications: Part 2 — Joint Design and Property Characterization

Structural lightweighting through the effective use of multiple materials has received increasing attention for fulfilling today’s demands for environmental sustainability in transportation systems. Direct dissimilar material joining methods (versus, e.g., traditional adhesive bonding or mechanical fastening) have become increasingly desirable since they offer process simplicity, production efficiency, and hermetic sealing, among others. In Part I of this two-part article, we provided a critical assessment of the state-of-the-art research and promising direct dissimilar material joining techniques reported over the last decades, with a particular emphasis on their potential for structural applications. As such, in Part 2, recent advances in advanced joint design and modeling methods for enabling optimum joint design for joint ability and joint performance are presented along with some detailed examples for demonstrating their potential impacts on industrial applications. Finally, recommendations on future research and development directions are outlined for supporting the industry’s drive towards multi-material lightweighting.