There are many different methods for welding aluminum, each with its own characteristics and applicable occasions. The following are several common aluminum welding methods and their brief introductions:
1. Gas welding
- Principle: Use the flame generated by the combustion of combustible gas (such as acetylene, liquefied petroleum gas, etc.) mixed with oxygen as a heat source for welding.
- Features: Simple equipment and easy operation, but low thermal power, large deformation of welded parts, low productivity, low weld quality, and easy to produce defects such as slag inclusions and cracks.
- Application: Mainly used for repair welding of aluminum sheets and castings with low welding quality requirements.
2. Electrode arc welding
- Principle: Use the electrode as an electrode to ignite an arc between the electrode coated with flux and the workpiece, and use the arc heat to melt the electrode and the workpiece to form a weld connection.
- Features: The joint quality is poor, generally used for repair welding of aluminum alloy castings and welding of aluminum alloy structural parts with low quality requirements.
- Application: Suitable for repairing aluminum alloy castings and welding of aluminum alloy structures produced in small batches.
3. Tungsten Inert Gas Welding (TIG)
- Principle: Under the protection of argon gas, the arc heat generated between the tungsten electrode and the workpiece is used to melt the base material and filler wire to form a weld.
- Features: The weld metal is dense, the joint has high strength and good plasticity. The strength and plasticity of the welded joint are high, but the equipment is relatively complex and it is not suitable for outdoor operation.
- Application: It is widely used in industry and can be used to weld aluminum and aluminum alloy thin plates, aluminum thick plates and various shapes of structural parts.
4. Metal Inert Gas Welding (MIG)
- Principle: A fusible welding wire is used as an electrode, argon or argon-rich mixed gas is used as a shielding gas, the arc burns between the welding wire and the workpiece, and the melted welding wire is used as a filler material.
- Features: The arc power is large, the welding speed is fast, and the production efficiency can be increased by 2 to 3 times compared with manual tungsten inert gas welding, but the equipment cost is high, the welding wire diameter is thin, and the porosity sensitivity of the weld is large.
- Application: Suitable for welding pure aluminum and aluminum alloy plates with a thickness of less than 50 mm, commonly used in automatic welding and semi-automatic welding.
5. Pulse argon arc welding
- Principle: The arc power and weld formation are adjusted by controlling the size and time of the pulse current.
- Features: It can significantly improve the stability of the low-current welding process, facilitate accurate control of the arc power and weld formation, and the weld deformation is small and the heat-affected zone is small.
- Application: It is particularly suitable for aluminum thin plates, all-position welding, assembly welding, and welding of high-strength aluminum alloys such as forged aluminum, hard aluminum, and super-hard aluminum that are highly sensitive to heat.
6. Friction stir welding
- Principle: The friction and stirring effect between the high-speed rotating stirring head and the workpiece are used to make the material flow plastically and combine into one.
- Features: No spatter, no smoke, no need to add welding wire and protective gas, no pores or cracks in the joint, good mechanical properties, energy saving, no pollution, but there are more restrictions on shaft parts.
- Application: Widely used in welding of various alloy plates, especially suitable for welding of light metals such as aluminum alloys.
GNEE reminds that there are many different welding methods for aluminum materials, and the selection of the appropriate welding method needs to be determined according to the specific application scenario and requirements.
