Impact Welding Structural Aluminium Alloys to High Strength Steels Using Vaporizing Foil Actuator

Abstract

Dissimilar Al/Fe joining was achieved using vaporizing foil actuator welding. Flyer velocities up to 727 m/s were reached using 10 kJ input energy. Four Al/Fe combinations involving AA5052, AA6111-T4, JAC980, and JSC1500 were examined. Weld samples were mechanically tested in lap-shear in three conditions: as-welded, corrosion-tested with ecoating, and corrosion-tested without coating. In all three conditions, the majority of the samples failed in the base aluminium instead of the weld. This shows that the weld was stronger than at least one of the base materials, both before and after corrosion testing. Galvanic corrosion was not significant since the differences in open cell potential, which represent the driving forces for galvanic corrosion, were small among these materials—no more than 60 mV in all cases. Nonetheless, through corrosion testing, the base materials suffered general corrosion, which accounted for the weakening of the base materials.