Direct spot joining of thin gauge aluminum alloy to stainless steel and joint performance in a corrosion environment

Abdul Sayeed Khan, Pingsha Dong, Kai Sun, Doug Larsen

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

Direct joining of aluminum alloy and steel sheets offers a great potential for achieving effective structural lightweighting for transportation systems. The major challenge is how to avoid the formation of brittle intermetallic compounds (IMCs), which can be detrimental to joint load capacity and corrosion resistance. This paper presents a friction-based direct solid-state joining method for welding thin aluminum alloy (AA6061-T6) to stainless steel (316). Using a flat head friction heating tool, high quality interfacial bonding was achieved under a spot time of 20s and 1000 rpm without detrimental IMCs. The effects of an automotive-relevant corrosion environment condition on joint strengths were then examined through mechanical testing. The test results show that aluminum and stainless-steel spot joints produced by the proposed method exhibit no corrosion-induced damage or cracking nor any noticeable reduction in strengths, resulting in dominantly ductile failure mode.

Original languageEnglish
Article number111919
JournalThin-Walled Structures
Volume200
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 2024
Externally publishedYes

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation grant (NSF CMMI 2126163), and the authors acknowledge the technical support from the Michigan Center for Materials Characterization (MC2). They also acknowledge Ben Houle's support for preparing the temperature measurement setup.

Keywords

  • Aluminum-steel interface
  • Corrosion
  • Dissimilar material joining
  • intermetallic compounds (IMCs)
  • Joint strength
  • Shear localization
  • Solid state welding

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