Diode laser welding of aluminum to steel

Laser welding of dissimilar materials was carried out by using a high power diode laser to join aluminum to steel in a butt-joint configuration. During testing, the laser scan rate was changed as well as the laser power: at low values of fluence (i.e. the ratio between laser power and scan rate), poor joining was observed; instead at high values of fluence, an excess in the material melting affected the joint integrity. Between these limiting values, a good aesthetics was obtained; further investigations were carried out by means of tensile tests and SEM analyses. Unfortunately, a brittle behavior was observed for all the joints and a maximum rupture stress about 40 MPa was measured. Apart from the formation of intermeltallic phases, poor mechanical performances also depended on the chosen joining configuration, particularly because of the thickness reduction of the seam in comparison with the base material.