Materials Letters 253 (2019) 401–404

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Materials Letters
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/mlblue

Joining of Mn-Cu alloy and 430 stainless steel using Cu-based filler by
SIMA-imitated brazing process
Jing Yang a, Yonggang Xu a,b,⇑, Song Zhang a, Mingyue Zhang a
a
Key Laboratory for Advanced Technologies of Materials, The Ministry of Education of China, Southwest Jiao Tong University, Chengdu 610031, Sichuan Province, PR China
b
Jiangsu Keda Car industry Co., LTD, Baoyin County, Yangzhou 225800, Jiangsu Province, PR China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A new SIMA-imitated brazing was used to join Mn-Cu damping alloy and 430 stainless steel (SS) with
Received 10 April 2019 Cu-34Mn-6Ni-10Sn filler metal. The microstructure and mechanical properties of the brazed joint were
Received in revised form 7 June 2019 investigated. The results show that the semi-solid brazing seam was obtained at 790 °C. A (Fe, Mn, Cr)
Accepted 29 June 2019
solid solution diffusion layer was formed between 430SS and brazing seam. The Mn-Fe-Cu-Cr compounds
Available online 1 July 2019
were formed in brazing seam due to the dissolution of 430SS. The liquid phase penetrated along the grain
boundaries of Mn-Cu alloy. The shear strength of the brazed joint is 230 MPa, the brazed joint exhibits a
Keywords:
ductile fracture feature.
Semi-solid brazing
Metals and alloys
Ó 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Microstructure
Mechanical properties

1. Introduction
As a class of functional and structural material for vibration and
noise reduction, Mn-Cu alloys have attracted much attention due
to their high damping capacity and excellent mechanical proper-
ties [1–3]. Brazing Mn-Cu alloys with stainless steels can obtain
alloys with good integrated properties and expand the application
of Mn-Cu alloys. Cu-based filler metals are widely used for the
brazing of copper alloys and stainless steels. However, the solid-
liquid reactions between substrates and filler metals at high braz-
ing temperature (usually above 900 °C) lead to the formation of
compounds in joints. Na et al. [4] found that the Mn-Fe phase
and Fe-Cr phase were formed due to the reaction between
Cu-Mn-Ni filler metal and stainless steel. Zheng et al. [5] reported
that the Ni3Al compounds were formed adjacent to the Ni-plated
1Cr17Ni2 stainless steel due to the dissolution of Al-bronze
substrate.
For suppressing the formation of compounds, semi-solid braz-
ing has been developed to reduce the brazing temperature and to
relieve the reaction between substrates and filler metal. So far,
semi-solid brazing is mainly used to join aluminum alloys and
magnesium alloys at relatively low temperatures (below 500 °C)
[6,7]. The external mechanical energy applied by ultrasonic and
stirring etc. is used to remove the oxide films on substrates. How-
ever, there is few researches on the semi-solid brazing of copper
⇑ Corresponding author at: Tel.: +86 02887600712.
E-mail address: yonggang2002@163.com (Y. Xu).
alloys and stainless steels. Furthermore, the higher brazing tem-
perature of Cu-based filler metal presents a big challenge to the
corresponding assistant equipment.
Besides, filler metal possesses spherical grains rather than den-
drites has better fluidity at semi-solid zone [8]. SIMA (Strain
Induced Melt Activated) process can produce spherical grains by
reheating the pre-deformed alloy to semi-solid state. In this study,
a novel SIMA-imitated brazing process was applied to suppress the
solid-liquid reactions in the joining of Mn-Cu alloy and 430 stain-
less steel (430SS) by using rolled Cu-based filler metal. The
microstructure and mechanical properties of the brazed joint were
investigated.
2. Experimental procedures
The Mn-Cu alloy (46.55 wt% Mn, 48.10 wt% Cu, 1.55 wt% Al,
3.0 wt% Zn, 0.8 wt% Cr) and 430SS were used as substrates.
A duplex Cu-34Mn-6Ni-10Sn alloy was used as filler metal as
shown in Fig. 1a. According to differential scanning calorimetry
analysis, the solidus and liquidus temperatures of the filler metal
are 785 °C and 820 °C, respectively. The as-cast filler metal was
rolled at room temperature with a thickness reduction of 33.33%.
To confirm the appropriate SIMA-imitated brazing temperature,
the rolled filler metal was reheated at 790, 800 and 810 °C for
10 min followed by water cooling.
For SIMA-imitated brazing, the rolled filler metal foils of about
250 lm in thickness and substrates with the dimension of
20  20  3 mm3 were ground using 400# emery papers and

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matlet.2019.06.098
0167-577X/Ó 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
402 J. Yang et al. / Materials Letters 253 (2019) 401–404
Fig. 1. Microstructure (a) and XRD pattern (b) of the as-cast filler metal, microstructure of filler metal: (c) rolled, (d)–(f) reheated at 790, 800 and 810 °C, respectively.
ultrasonically cleaned with ethanol for 15 min. The filler metal foil
was placed between Mn-Cu alloy and 430SS, then the assembled
samples were fixed with self-made jig. A paste flux was used to
prevent the oxidation of brazing region. The brazing was carried
out in a resistance furnace at 790 °C for 10 min followed by water
cooling.
The microstructures of semi-solid reheated filler metal and
SIMA-imitated brazed joints were observed via scanning electron
microscopy (SEM, JSM-7800F) equipped with energy dispersive
X-ray spectrometer (EDS). The phase constituent of the as-cast fil-
ler metal was analyzed by X-ray Diffraction (XRD). The shear
strength of joints was tested by the testing machine (CMT 4304)
with a travel speed of 0.5 mm
min 1, and the fracture characteris-
tics were analyzed by SEM.
3. Results and discussion
The microstructure and XRD pattern of as-cast filler metal are
shown in Fig. 1a and b, respectively. It can be seen that the filler
metal consists of the grey dendritic and white interdendritic
regions. The EDS analysis results illustrate that the dendritic region
of point 1 contains 52.15 wt% Cu, 34.45 wt% Mn, 6.10 wt% Ni and
7.30 wt% Sn, and the interdendritic region of point 2 contains
45.54 wt% Cu, 33.57 wt% Mn, 6.12 wt% Ni and 14.77 wt% Sn. This
suggests that the main reason to the feature is interdendritic seg-
regation of Sn in the filler metal. Combined with the XRD result,
the filler is composed of a Sn-poor (Cu, Mn, Ni) solid solution phase
and a Sn-rich (Cu, Mn, Ni) solid solution phase. The diffraction
peaks of Sn-rich phase moved to the left relatively.
Fig. 1c is the microstructure of rolled filler metal. The dendrites
lengthened along the rolling direction. The microstructures of the
rolled filler metal reheated at different temperatures are shown
in Fig. 1d–f, respectively. At 790 °C, the Sn-rich liquid phase was
formed at the grain boundaries and inside the recrystallized
equiaxed grains of solid phase [9], as shown in Fig. 1d. This demon-
strated that a typical semi-solid microstructure was obtained in fil-
ler metal, but the grain spheroidization was not obvious. In Fig. 1e,
the solid phase was isolated by the increased liquid phase at
800 °C. And the transition zone was formed due to the element dif-
fusion between solid and liquid phases. According to the EDS anal-
ysis results, from the solid phase and transition zone to liquid
phase, the contents of Mn and Ni are decreased while the content
of Sn is increased, and there is little difference in Cu content. In
Fig. 1f, the filler metal was almost completely melted and
re-solidified at 810 °C. Similarly, it contains two phases, but non-
dendrites microstructure was obtained. Based on the analyses
above, 790 °C was chosen as the SIMA-imitated brazing
temperature.
Fig. 2a presents the cross section of the SIMA-imitated brazed
joint. In brazing seam, the columnar grey phase (50.32 wt% Cu,
38.92 wt% Mn, 7.22 wt% Ni, 2.22 wt% Sn and 1.32 wt% Fe) was
formed adjacent to 430SS. The semi-solid microstructure similar
with Fig. 1e was observed, but the transition zone was almost dis-
appeared, as shown in Fig. 2b. Compounds were formed near each
substrate. Cracks might be produced by the high cooling rate of
brazed joint. The line scanning results of region c (Fig. 2c) indicated
that a (Fe, Mn, Cr) solid solution diffusion layer with the thickness
of about 1.5 lm was formed between 430SS and brazing seam. The
compound in the brazing seam contains 64.94 wt% Mn, 15.08 wt%
Fe, 12.87 wt% Cu, 2.63 wt% Cr with a little Ni and Sn, which indi-
cated that the formation of compounds was attributed to the dis-
solution of 430SS. In region d (Fig. 2d), the grain boundary
penetration (GBP) of liquid phase in Mn-Cu alloy was observed,
the penetration distance was 15–20 lm. The liquid phase formed
lenticular particles at the grain boundaries, which indicated that
the incomplete wetting of grain boundaries by the liquid phase
was happened at the Mn-Cu alloy side [10].
The formation mechanism of SIMA-imitated brazed joint is as
follows. Reaching the semi-solid zone, liquid phase formed at grain
boundaries and inside the grains with high energy state. The
increased liquid phase gradually separated the solid phase and
wetted on the substrates. And the solid-liquid reactions happened
between semi-solid filler metal and substrates. At 430SS side, ele-
ments of liquid phase diffused into the 430SS substrate and formed
 J. Yang et al. / Materials Letters 253 (2019) 401–404 403

Fig. 2. Microstructure of SIMA-imitated brazed joint: (a) cross section, (b)–(d) regions b, c and d marked in (a).

a (Fe, Mn, Cr) diffusion layer at the interface. At the Mn-Cu side, the
GBP of liquid phase led to the melting of grain boundaries, an
uneven interface was obtained between the Mn-Cu alloy and braz-
ing seam. Meanwhile, the dissolution of 430SS brought Fe and Cr
into liquid phase of filler metal, which resulted in the formation
of Mn-Fe-Cu-Cr compounds near each substrate. What’s more,
the distribution characteristics of compounds was related to the
interfacial smoothness. The distribution of compounds near the
430SS was concentrated, while that near Mn-Cu alloy was more
dispersed. During the solidification process, the columnar grey
phase nucleated and grew along the diffusion layer. The residual
liquid and solid phases formed a semi-solid microstructure in the
brazing seam.
According to the shear test results, the average shear strength of
the brazed joints is 230 MPa. The fracture crack is shown in Fig. 3a.
The inhomogeneity of interfacial diffusion layer makes it weaker in
the brazed joint, and the low deformability of the Mn-Fe-Cu-Cr
compounds near the Mn-Cu alloy caused stress concentration
when the load was applied. Therefore, cracks were formed and
propagated at these two regions firstly. With the propagation of
cracks, the semi-solid brazing seam bore the highest shear stress.
Therefore, the cracks at two regions propagated into the brazing
seam. The fracture crack grew through three different regions in
the joint, as shown in Fig. 3a. The fracture morphology in Fig. 3b
shows ductile fracture characteristics of the sheared brazed joint.
4. Conclusion
Mn-Cu alloy and 430SS were successfully joined by SIMA-
imitated brazing process using Cu-34Mn-6Ni-10Sn filler metal.
The semi-solid microstructure was obtained in brazing seam. The
solid and liquid reactions between 430SS and filler metal resulted
in the formation of a (Fe, Mn, Cr) diffusion layer at the interface and
the Mn-Fe-Cu-Cr compounds in brazing seam. The liquid phase
penetrated along the grain boundaries of Mn-Cu alloy, and the
grain boundaries was incompletely wetted by the liquid phase.
The shear strength of the brazed joint is 230 MPa. The fracture
morphology of the brazed joint exhibits a ductile fracture feature.

Fig. 3. The illustration of fracture crack (a) and morphology (b) of brazed joint.
404 J. Yang et al. / Materials Letters 253 (2019) 401–404
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foun-
dation of China (No. 11172248 and No. 51701167) , the Fundamen-
tal Research Funds for the Central Universities (No.
2682017CX073) and the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu
Province .
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