Magnetic pulse welding: Joining within microseconds - high strength forever

The commercial availability of Magnetic Pulse Welding (MPW) equipment is opening up new prospects for the technology within industrial line production. To establish MPW as a clean and safe solid state joining technology for cylindrical parts as well as sheets, comparisons to conventional fusion welding technologies are needed. The focus of this paper is on MPW-samples made of aluminum tubes (EN AW-6060) on steel or aluminum rods (C45 or EN AW-6082). They were tested in a cyclic torsion test with up to two million cycles to evaluate their fatigue strength and to compare them with the fusion welded aluminum parts of the same geometry. Even dissimilar MPW parts show an excellent performance due to the absence of critical intermetallic phases and allow for weight reduction in the powertrain. Furthermore, this work describes a possibility for energy reduction in the MPW process that allows for the downsizing of pulse generators.