Would appreciate advice and help on Resistance welding of Aluminium. I need to join, on a fairly regular basis, two sheets of new, 0.8mm thick, Aluminium sheet together. Would appreciate advice on this subject, and what equipment I need to buy, to do this (I am Spain/UK based). TIA
Mark in Spain.
Its for the heat collector fins of Solar Panels, which clamp tightly around copper tubes. Not sure I would trust an adhesive with the continuous heating/cooling of the fins, what do you think?
Aluminum can be spot welded reliably... Audi's aluminum frame is so assembled.
It takes much more energy though to weld aluminum in this manner than welding mild or stainless steel.
I would suggest that you take some samples of what you wish to weld to a business that does spot welding and try it out. They could then tell you the power requirements.
From my reference RESISTANCE WELDING by P.L. Chuloshnikov: "...strong current pulses 3 - 3.5 times as strong as as for low carbon steels... welding pressures... the same as for low carbon steels. A forging force should be applied while the molten nugget is crystallizing (solidifying).
Non-hardening aluminum alloys are somewhat easier to weld than hardening alloys."
Trust this suffices to get you going.
Wolfgang
I have a Miller portable spot welder--220Volts--the body(transformer) is about 4" square and 14" long--two electrode arms/ jaws reach out about
10" with replaceable copper tips--(arms are 3/4" Ø solid copper) gets warm after about 10 continuous welds. Jerry--Try google miller welder portable.There may be an advantage in using a flexible fastening method between two metals that have different expansion rates.
3M customer service should be able to tell you if they have products that will fill your needs if you can give them a temperature estimate.Eng> On Tue, 25 Aug 2009 22:46:58 -0700 (PDT), engineman
All good advice, I am sure.
Good engineering will also have a method of repairing the devices you are building. Spot welding is fairly permanent.
Paul
I would consider pop rivets unless you are going to be manufacturing them in quantity. A spot welder for aluminum will not be cheap. Pop rivets just require a portable electric drill and a manual rivet gun.
=20 Dan
Hum - metal filled epoxy ? - Talk to 3M experts! They solve problems world wide and have seen and heard most.
Mart> >
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