Fabrication of Roughened Electrodeposited Copper Coating on Steel for Dissimilar Joining of Steel and Thermoplastic Resin

Abstract

Electrodeposition of a roughened copper coating onto steel was carried out to produce a bonding surface for thermoplastic resin (polyphenylenesulfide). The roughened copper film was electrodeposited using a copper sulfate bath containing polyacrylic acid (PAA). Following injection molding of the resin, the bonding strength was evaluated in a tensile lap shear strength test, followed by durability testing at high temperature and humidity (85 ± 2 °C and 85 ± 2% relative humidity, respectively) for 2000 h, and a thermal shock test (−50 °C–150 °C) for 1000 cycles. An analysis of the boundary microstructure showed that the PAA concentration had a large effect on the surface morphology of the copper film. The shear strength of the joint between the coated steel substrate and the resin was more than 40 MPa, and the bonding strength also remained above 40 MPa throughout the durability test. During the thermal shock test, although the bonding strength gradually decreased with increasing number of cycles, it remained at over 20 MPa, even after 1000 cycles. This method achieves not only high initial bonding strength, but also durability for joints between dissimilar materials such as steel and resin.