Joining of carbon fibres with aluminium structures – Processing and infiltration modelling

Abstract

Against the background of today's lightweight design, an innovative joining technique has been developed at the Institute for Metal Forming Technology/Stuttgart for combining aluminium sheet structures with carbon fabrics. During the process of Joining of Carbon Fibres with Aluminium Structures (JOCA process), two or more aluminium sheets with carbon fabric layers in-between are initially conductively heated up into the semi-solid material state by means of two adjacent electrodes of a welding gun. If heated up to a liquid share of 30% to 60%, the aluminium matrix infiltrates the carbon fabric resulting into a firm joint after solidification of the metal material. This publication provides an overview of the research results obtained by experimental and numerical investigations of the infiltration process achieved so far.