Join Al–steel dissimilar metal by novel high frequency electric cooperated arc welding

Abstract

A novel high frequency electric cooperated arc welding method (HFAW) was developed to join aluminium and steel of 3.0 mm thickness without groove. Owing to the skin effect and proximity effect of high frequency current, a part of welding heat was directly distributed all over weld side wall. Consequently, sound double-sided weld formation was achieved under a low MIG heat input and high welding speed. The average thickness of interfacial layer was limited to 2.3 µm. Benefitted from the balanced heat input and thin interfacial layer, the failure mode of the HFAW joint was necking at Al base metal. For traditional MIG joint, however, poor back weld formation and thick interfacial layer resulted in spontaneous fracture at interface.