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Ultrasonic Welding of Hybrid Joints

Article in JOM: the journal of the Minerals, Metals & Materials Society · March 2012
DOI: 10.1007/s11837-012-0269-5

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JOM
DOI: 10.1007/s11837-012-0269-5
Ó 2012 TMS

Ultrasonic Welding of Hybrid Joints

GUNTRAM WAGNER,1 FRANK BALLE,1,2 and DIETMAR EIFLER1

1.—Institute of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Kaiserslautern, P.O. Box 3049,
67653 Kaiserslautern, Germany. 2.—e-mail: balle@mv.uni-kl.de

A central research field of the Institute of Materials Science and Engineering

at the University of Kaiserslautern (WKK), Germany, is the realization of
innovative hybrid joints by ultrasonic metal welding. This article gives an
overview of suitable ultrasonic welding systems as well as of essential
machine and material parameters, which influence the quality of the welds.
Besides the ultrasonic welding of dissimilar metals such as Al to Cu or Al to
steels, the welds between newly developed materials like aluminum foam
sandwiches or flat flexible cables also can be realized. Moreover, the joining of
glass and ceramic to sheet metals is a point of interest at the WKK. By using
the ultrasonic metal welding process, it is possible to realize metal/glass welds
with tensile shear strengths of 50 MPa. For metal/ceramic joints, the shear
strengths values up to 150 MPa were measured. Finally, selected results
about the occurring bonding mechanisms will be discussed.

some of the central results of the investigations at

INTRODUCTION
Global markets and manufacturing companies
have led to an increase in the volume of passenger
and freight transportation. Simultaneously, the
relevance and need of lightweight technologies
grows by modified economical and ecological
boundary conditions. Hence, the predominant aim
of innovative products in the automotive and air-
craft industry, as well as in railway transportation,
is the reduction of the weight of the components. For
the development of new lightweight products, hy-
brid joints formed with dissimilar metals like steel
and aluminum, or as a higher requirement, dis-
similar material groups such as metal and glass or
metal and fiber reinforced plastics, are of interest.
But to realize these joints, appropriate joining
techniques are necessary.
The use of the ultrasonic welding technique is
widespread in industry. It is used mainly for joining
polymers to polymers and metals to metals. How-
ever, for several years, a central research field of the
Institute of Materials Science and Engineering at
the University of Kaiserslautern (WKK) has been
the realization of ultrasonically welded joints be-
tween different materials as metal to ceramic, metal
to glass, metal to metallic foam, and Al-alloys to
glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) or carbon
fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP). In this article,
the WKK will be presented.
ULTRASONIC WELDING TECHNOLOGY
Ultrasonic metal welding is a pressure welding
method that enables the joining of components in
the solid state.1 Various weld geometries (spot,
torsion, or roll-seam welds) can be realized by an
adapted arrangement of the machine components
and an appropriate design of the welding tool, called
sonotrode (Fig. 1).
The ultrasonic metal welding method is charac-
terized by short welding times (<1 s for spot welds of
metals, glass, and ceramics and <4 s for spot welds
of GFRP and CFRP with metal) and as a result by a
low-energy input. The joining process is clean and
environmentally friendly because no sparks, flames,
or fumes appear. The automation capacity of the
process and, thus, the integrability of the ultrasonic
welding systems into production lines as well as the
possibility of monitoring the welding parameters
electronically with data storage and statistical
evaluation, are also advantages of ultrasonic weld-
ing technology. The main components of an ultra-
sonic metal welding system are shown in Fig. 2.
In Fig. 2, the ultrasonic generator (1) converts the
50 Hz main voltage into a high-frequency alter-
nating voltage of 20 kHz. In the converter (2), this

Fig. 1. Process variants of the ultrasonic metal welding method.
Fig. 2. Ultrasonic welding of metals (process principle).
oscillation is transformed into mechanical oscillations
of the same frequency by a reversed piezoelectric
effect. The oscillation amplitude in the welding zone is
achieved by an appropriate design of the booster (3)
and the sonotrode (4). The amplitude typically ranges
between 5 lm and 40 lm, and it operates parallel to
the joining area. During the high-frequency process,
the joining parts (5) are pressed pneumatically on an
anvil (6) with a clamping force (7) between 100 N and
1500 N perpendicular to the welding zone.
Moreover, besides the machine parameters (oscil-
lation amplitude, welding force and transferred
welding energy), selected material parameters have
an influence on the achievable mechanical properties
of the welds (Fig. 3). Besides the chemical, physical,
and mechanical properties of the used materials, the
geometry of the upper joining partner is one of the
most influential factors because of the energy
absorption in the material. Welds can be realized for a
Wagner, Balle, and Eifler
maximum material thickness of 3 mm. The geometry
of the lower joining partner is less critical, whereas
the topography of the specimen surface becomes
important. If the surface roughness is too low, then
the parts only slip on each other and a welding zone
cannot be developed. If the roughness is too high,
then hot spots can occur and the following extreme
temperature gradients led, especially for brittle
materials, to a fracture of the components. Typically,
for a pressure welding process, a higher temperature
can enhance the process, but it is not essential.
SIMILAR AND DISSIMILAR METAL JOINTS
In industrial applications of ultrasonic metal
welding the following combinations of materials are
used predominantly1:
 pure aluminum/pure aluminum
 pure aluminum/aluminum alloy
Ultrasonic Welding of Hybrid Joints
Fig. 3. Important parameters for ultrasonic metal welding.
Fig. 4. Ultrasonically welded metal sheet/aluminum foam joints: (a)
spot welded, (b) roll-seam welded, and (c) torsion welded.
 aluminum/copper
 E-Cu/E-Cu (electrolytic copper)
 copper/copper-zinc alloys (brass)
 copper/copper-beryllium alloys.
Moreover, ultrasonic welding can be used to man-
ufacture joints between sheets and roll-clad foams
(Fig. 4), sintered hollow-sphere moldings and open-
pore metal foams manufactured by means of casting
technology. The base materials of the cellular
metallic materials range from aluminum, magne-
sium, and copper to nickel, titanium, and steel.2,3
HYBRID JOINTS
Systematic investigations at the WKK have shown
that it is also possible to join metals with brittle
materials like glass or ceramic with high precision
and reproducibility if a force-controlled ultrasonic
metal welding system is used. Furthermore, the lack
of plasticity of glass or ceramic components requires
a high-dimensional accuracy of the brittle parts and
of the anvil construction. In addition, only for using
aluminum and Al-alloys the plasticity of the metal is
sufficient to realize high-strength joints.
In the next section, some special ultrasonically
welded joints developed at the WKK are high-
lighted.
Metal/Glass Joints
As a result of the high-precision-controlled appli-
cation of force, the joints between metal and glass
can be produced by ultrasonic metal welding.4 Fig-
ure 5 shows a weld between borosilicate pressed-
glass bottles and a metal cap, which were realized
using an aluminum interlayer foil.
High-vacuum tight joints can be manufactured in
this way. The achieved maximum tensile shear
strength for metal/glass joints is approximately
50 MPa. The process temperature in the joining
zone was measured by near-field infrared thermog-
raphy with maximum temperature of 350°C.
For ring-shaped joints, as created by the ultra-
sonic torsional welding process, it is necessary to
ensure sufficiently good parallelism between the
joining parts as a requirement for a uniform energy
input. Otherwise, a local restricted input of the en-
ergy can generate too high temperature gradients
during the weld in the joining area, and as a result,
the weld fails. To avoid this, an air-bearing table was
developed at the WKK, which allows self-alignment
when the joining force is applied (Fig. 6).5
An example of why it is necessary to identify the
determining welding factors is shown for the ultra-
sonic torsion welding method in Fig. 7.
 Wagner, Balle, and Eifler

Fig. 5. High vacuum tight joints realized by ultrasonic torsion

welding.
Fig. 7. FE oscillation simulation for (a) a square sheet and (b) a
round sheet, developed welding zone for a (c) square sheet and a (d)
round sheet.

Fig. 6. Air-bearing anvil for ultrasonic torsion welding of metal to

brittle material developed at the WKK.
Fig. 8. Characteristic failure mode of NiCo2917/Al/ZrO2 joints after
monotonic tensile loading.

The natural-oscillation behavior depends on the

was investigated also at the WKK. According to the
geometry of the metal sheets. The joining partner
metal/glass joints, it is possible to weld steel or
has a significant influence on the developing welding
other metal alloys with ceramic by the use of a thin
zone. As expected, as a result of a finite-element (FE)
interlayer of pure aluminum. For example, in Fig. 9,
oscillation simulation (Fig. 7a), the use of square
a NiCo2917/Al/ZrO2 joint is presented. For this
metal sheets led to an unfavorable inherent mode of
joint, tensile shear strengths of minimum 120 MPa
oscillation. As a consequence, the welding area is
can be achieved. The maximum tensile strength is
extremely deformed over the whole circumference
unknown because the specimens failed outside the
(Fig. 7c). But the use of a round metal sheet, which
joining zone in the metal sheet (Fig. 8).6
shows in the FE simulation a harmonic oscillation
To understand the bonding mechanism, micro-
behavior (Fig. 7b), enables a uniform welding area
structural investigations were carried out. Figure 9
(Fig. 7d), only with small bulges on the other border
shows a high-resolution transmission electron
of the welding zone, according to the FE simulation.
micrograph of an ultrasonic weld between a mono-
crystalline Al2O3 and pure aluminum.
Metal/Ceramic Joints
The thickness of the joining zone lies only between
The possibility to manufacture high-strength 2 nm and 10 nm. It is difficult to describe the
metal/ceramic joints by ultrasonic metal welding character of this zone. But energy-dispersive x-ray
Ultrasonic Welding of Hybrid Joints
Fig. 9. Transmission electron micrograph of the joining interface of
an ultrasonically welded Al2O3 monocrystalline/aluminum joint.
Fig. 10. Ultrasonically welded metal/GFRP joints (a) spot weld and (b) torsion weld.
spectroscopy line scans of the joining region support
the assumption that intermolecular interaction had
occurred in this area.6
Metal/FRP Joints
The ultrasonic plastic welding with an oscillation
amplitude acting perpendicular to the welding zone
is typically used for joining GFRP or CFRP, but this
welding method only realizes a joining between the
metal sheet and the polymer matrices of the FRP.7,8
Hence, a mechanical load on the joint is not trans-
mitted directly from the metal to the fibers of the
FRP. Recent investigations at the WKK have shown
that ultrasonic metal welding is more suitable to
join FRP with metal sheets like aluminum alloys or
aluminum-plated steel (Fig. 10).
By using ultrasonic metal welding, the joining is
realized in two steps. First, the transversal ultra-
sonic oscillation plasticizes and displaces the poly-
mer matrix of the FRP out of the bonding zone. Then,
Fig. 11. Bonding zone of an ultrasonically metal welded Al/GFRP
joint (scanning electron microscope).
the transversal oscillation causes a contact between
the metal sheet and the fibers of the FRP (Fig. 11).
As a result, the load can be transmitted directly from
the sheet into the fibers. Tensile shear strengths up
to 40 MPa can be achieved for metal/GFRP, and
tensile shear strengths up to 60 MPa can be
achieved for metal/CFRP joints.
CONCLUSIONS
More and more, it is necessary to manufacture
hybrid joints out of different material groups. But
some of the resulting joining problems cannot be
solved by conventional welding processes. Investi-
gations at the WKK have shown that ultrasonic
metal welding as a pressure welding method is often
suitable to realize joints between completely differ-
ent material groups. Compared with adhesive
bonding, the ultrasonic metal welds are helium tight
and reveal no aging. Furthermore, it is possible to
achieve tensile shear strengths in the range of the
 Wagner, Balle, and Eifler

ultimate strength of the base materials. In sum-
mary, it can be determined that ultrasonic metal
welding is an extreme efficient welding method
when it is necessary to join sheets.
REFERENCES
1. M.J. Greitmann, T. Adam, H.G. Holzweißig, D. Stroh, G.
Wagner, P. Wiesner, and R. Züst, Tech. J. Weld. Allied
Process. 5, 268 (2003).
2. Ch. Born, G. Wagner, and D. Eifler, Adv. Eng. Mater. 8, 816
(2006).
3. Ch. Born, H. Kuckert, G. Wagner, and D. Eifler, Cell. Met.
Polym. 165 (2004).
4. H. Kuckert, C. Born, G. Wagner, and D. Eifler, Mat. Sci.
Eng. Technol. 34, 8 (2003).
5. H. Kuckert, C. Born, G. Wagner, and D. Eifler, Adv. Eng.
Mater. 3, 903 (2001).
6. J. Wagner, U. Schlicker, and D. Eifler, Weld. Cut. 50, 199
(1998).
7. G. Wagner, S. Krüger, and D. Eifler, Adv. Eng. Mater. 6, 157
(2004).
8. F. Balle, G. Wagner, and D. Eifler, Adv. Eng. Mater. 11, 35
(2009).

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