Abstract
Weight reduction and improved strength are two common engineering goals in the joining sector to benefit transport, aerospace, and nuclear industries amongst others. Here, in this paper, we show that the suitable addition of carbon nanomaterials to a tin-based solder material matrix (C-Solder® supplied by Cametics Ltd.) results in two-fold strength of soldered composite joints. Single-lap shear joint experiments were conducted on soldered aluminium alloy (6082 T6) substrates. The soldering material was reinforced in different mix ratios by carbon black, graphene, and single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) and benchmarked against the pristine C-solder®. The material characterisation was performed using Vickers micro-indentation, differential scanning calorimetry and nano-indentation, whereas functional testing involved mechanical shear tests using single-lap aluminium soldered joints and creep tests. The hardness was observed to improve in all cases except for the 0.01 wt.% graphene reinforced solders, with 5% and 4% improvements in 0.05 carbon black and SWCNT reinforced solders, respectively. The maximum creep indentation was noted to improve for all solder categories with maximum 11% and 8% improvements in 0.05 wt.% carbon black and SWCNT reinforced ones. In general, the 0.05 wt.% nanomaterial reinforced solders promoted progressive cohesion failure in the joints as opposed to instantaneous fully de-bonded failure observed in pristine soldered joints, which suggests potential application in high-performance structures where no service load induced adhesion failure is permissible (e.g. aerospace assemblies). The novel innovation developed here will pave the way to achieving high-performance solder joining without carrying out extensive surface preparations.
Highlights
In the current era of lightweight hybrid structures, design, and manufacturing for aerospace and automotive applications, fastener-less high-quality and high-strength joining methods capable of joining dissimilar materials are being rigorously researched
The identification of carbon nanomaterials was not conducted in the optical microscopy images, and not shown in the scale presented in these images
This article investigated the merits of using carbon nanomaterial reinforcing agent to mix with commercial tin-based solder material, C-Solder®
Summary
In the current era of lightweight hybrid structures, design, and manufacturing for aerospace and automotive applications, fastener-less high-quality and high-strength joining methods capable of joining dissimilar materials are being rigorously researched. The main methods used for structural joining are mechanical fastening, adhesive bonding, and high-temperature joining such as welding, brazing, and soldering [1,2,3,4]. Joining aluminium for structural applications has proven to be challenging using traditional welding and brazing practices due to its high coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE). Whilst other fastener-less technologies such as adhesive bonding, welding, brazing, and solderbased joining provide an improved joint stiffness and limitedly overcome the problem of stress concentration [1,2,3,4]. The damage tolerance is mainly facilitated by cohesion failure of the bulk adhesive at the interface
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