Friction heats up Mazda aluminum welding - From Automotive Body Repair News
Mark Johnson over at Automotive Body Repair News has a great article for anyone who has mig welded to check out.
Anyone who has pulled the trigger on a MIG welder or who has closed the jaws on a spot welder knows the rules: You can’t weld dissimilar metals.
Rules are made to be broken, and that rule was smashed in 1990 when friction welding was developed. Two different metals can be joined with friction welding, but until recently, the different metals had to be fairly similar—aluminum and magnesium, for example. Now Mazda has broken that rule by adapting a friction welding technique to enable it to join steel and aluminum.
Basically, Mazda has created a welding process that solves the huge problem of joining aluminum to steel (when you do, it creates a galvanic reatction). The joint inevitably fails when positive charges from steel and negatively charged aluminum meet. Whatever they welded becomes junk. Galvanized steel essentially solves this by not causing the contact to break -- no more corrossion on the aluminum side. And a ton of advantages.
Give it a read.
Anyone who has pulled the trigger on a MIG welder or who has closed the jaws on a spot welder knows the rules: You can’t weld dissimilar metals.
Rules are made to be broken, and that rule was smashed in 1990 when friction welding was developed. Two different metals can be joined with friction welding, but until recently, the different metals had to be fairly similar—aluminum and magnesium, for example. Now Mazda has broken that rule by adapting a friction welding technique to enable it to join steel and aluminum.
Basically, Mazda has created a welding process that solves the huge problem of joining aluminum to steel (when you do, it creates a galvanic reatction). The joint inevitably fails when positive charges from steel and negatively charged aluminum meet. Whatever they welded becomes junk. Galvanized steel essentially solves this by not causing the contact to break -- no more corrossion on the aluminum side. And a ton of advantages.
Give it a read.
posted by Scott at 9:34 PM
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