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Destructive and Non-Destructive Testing of the Weldment of Dissimilar

Metals

Article  in  International Journal of Applied Engineering Research · January 2015

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 Destructive and Non-Destructive Testing of
the Weldment of Dissimilar Metals
Ahmad AL_Fasfous1, Suleiman Obeidat2 and Mohammad Aljarrah3

Hashemite University,
Zarqa, Jordan
1
Civil Engineering Department, Non- Destructive Testing, Email: ahmed_30042001@yahoo.com
2
Industrial Engineering Department, Email: sulobeidat@hu.edu.jo
3
Industrial Engineering Department, Email: maljarrah@hu.edu.jo

Abstract

Joining dissimilar metals is very important in manufacturing, and automotive industry. In this
research weldment strength and fatigue life of brazing of high Carbon steel (H.C), medium Carbon
steel (M.C), and low Carbon steel (L.C) with Aluminum, Brass, and Copper will be studied using
Bronze C as filler material. Two joint types of butt joints (closed square butt joint and Single-V butt
joint with 30ο) are studied. Non-Destructive tests were performed on all samples using die penetrant
method to show if any surface defects or cracks appear to help expect the way the weldment fails.
Brazing aluminum with HC, MC, and LC had failed due to no wetting, and closed square butt joint
proved that. It failed when Manual torch brazing is used because the melted filler metal did not inter
the gap. Single-V butt joint with 30ο is the best way to braze the joint with Manual torch brazing
because the melted filler material has filled most of the gap between the materials. Brazing HC, MC,
and LC with brass gives higher strength than brazing it with copper. The fatigue endurance limit for
HC, MC, and LC with brass is higher than that with copper.

1. Introduction join the work pieces together. It is similar to

Nowadays, joining dissimilar metals is
very important in manufacturing, construction,
automotive industry, aerospace, aviation,
shipbuilding and railway transportation. Joining
dissimilar metal is to compose different
properties like corrosion resistibility, strength
and low weights. Dissimilar metal welding
minimizes material costs and at the same time
maximizes the performance of the equipment
and machinery. In this research brazing is
studied as joining process where the filler metal
is heated above melting point. Capillary action
is helping filler metal to fill the joint. The filler
metal is brought slightly above its melting
temperature while protected by a suitable
atmosphere, usually a flux. Then it flows over
the base metal (known as wetting) and it cools to
soldering, except the temperatures used to melt
the filler metal are lower, and the bonds formed.
Brazing forms metallurgical bonds while
soldering produces mechanical bonds.
The brazing process will be illustrated
by the classical model of wetting and spreading.
In this model, we will take a droplet of the liquid
on the surface, and neglect the reaction between
liquid and the solid surface. The classical model
of wetting is based on the behavior of a liquid
drop on an inert solid surface. There are three
surface tensions control the spreading, as shown
in figure 1.

1

Fig. 1: Surface tension force acting when a liquid
droplet wets a solid surface, [1].
According to the forces in figure 1:
γSL = γSV - γLV cosθ (1)
Where, γSL is the surface tension between the
solid and liquid. γSV is the surface tension solid
and vapor. γLV is the surface tension between the
liquid and vapor. And θ is the angle between the
liquid droplet and solid surface. Equation 1, is
known as Young's equation or wetting equation.
If θ < 90ο then γSV > γSL, this means that the
droplet will spread on the solid surface, and on
the other hand if 90ο < θ < 180ο a liquid droplet
will not spread on the solid surface.
In this research high Carbon steel
(H.C), medium Carbon steel (M.C), and low
Carbon steel (L.C) are brazed with Aluminum,
Brass, and Copper. According to Classification
of Carbon and Low-Alloy Steels and
Engineering fundamentals page on medium
carbon steel [3,4,5] the percent of carbon will be
illustrated as, low carbon steel (L.C) less than
0.29 % carbon content, medium carbon steel
(M.C) approximately 0.30–0.59% carbon
content, and high carbon steel (H.C)
approximately 0.6–0.99% carbon content. All
the types brazed using Bronze C as a filler
material. The Chemical composition of the
metals is illustrated in table 1.
TABLE 1 CHEMICAL COMPOSITIONS OF
MATERIALS
Non destructive testing methods perform
feasibility study in detecting defects. Penetrant
test is used mainly to reveal the surface defects
using a colored dye. The principle here depends
on the capillary action for the cracks making a
2
contrast so they can be visible to the inspector
by the naked eye.
2. Literature review
Many studies have been conducted on
welding of dissimilar metals and its significance
in specific strengths which has been recognized
as being better than mechanical fastening and
adhesive bonding [2,3].The capillary force is the
driving force to flow in the joint [4]. The filler
metal is brought slightly above its melting
temperature while protected by a suitable
atmosphere, usually a flux. It then flows over
the base metal known as wetting and is then
cooled to join the work pieces together [5]. The
selection of filler metal is the basic idea [6].
(Matthey and Sloboda, 1961) [7] studied the
flow of the brazing alloy and the effect on the
joint and the perfect gap for the joint which is
for Copper-Zinc 0.051mm to 0.254mm. (Cao, et
al., 2011) [8] brazed brass to steel using
Ag25CuZnSn filler metal and tested by tensile
strength which gave 445 MPa. When Ag has
been increased it gave higher strength. (Shabtay,
2004) [9] brazed copper with steel using laser
and Cu-Al as a filler metal and he found that the
maximum stress of the joint is 250 MPa. He
established a new brazing process and evaluates
the technology through prototype building.
(Xueqin, et al., 2004) [10] and (Mingfang, et al.,
2011) [11] studied the effect of brazing time on
microstructure of the joints and the new phases
will appear. ( Borrisutthekul, et al., 2010) [12]
indicated that TIG welding process is feasible to
be used in dissimilar metals welding of
steel/aluminum alloy.
Many researchers studied friction welding to
join dissimilar metal, (Malarvizhi and
Balasubramanian, 2007) [13] studied many
types of welding and they stated that friction stir
welding (FSW) is better than gas tungsten arc
welding (GTAW) in tensile strength and the
fatigue strength, while GTAW exhibits better
pitting corrosion resistance compared to FSW.
Brazing is the same as GTAW which has better
corrosion resistance compared to FSW [14,15],
and GTAW is better than FSW in fatigue
because there is small internal cracks[16].
Manual torch brazing is a procedure where the
heat is applied using a gas flame placed on or
near the joint being brazed. The torch can either
be hand held or held in a fixed position
depending on if the operation is completely
manual or has some level of automation. Manual
brazing is most commonly used on small
production volumes or in applications where the
part size or configuration makes other brazing
methods impossible [17].

(Xueqin, et al., 2004) [18] and (Mingfang, et al.,

2011) [19] studied the effect of brazing time on
microstructure of the joints and the new phases
will appear. Fig. 3: Experimental results show that the closed
square butt welding and the filler metal don't
(Traxler, 2002) [20] used colored dye inter the gap.
fluorescent to reveal the surface flaws seen
under the black light (Ultraviolet). In this
3.1 Analysis of Tensile Testing Results
research ordinary penetrant test has been used to
inspect the surface crack using naked eye.
For the tensile test, all samples failed
suddenly under a constant uniaxial tension
3. Results and Discussions loading rate as a brittle material in the welding
region. Figure 4 shows the stress-strain curve of
Brazing aluminum with any steel types the welding joint made between L.C and brass,
(H.C, M.C and L.C) failed in this research and between L.C and copper.
because the filler metal (Bronze C) does not
make any wetting on the aluminum side in the
joint which means that is no brazing operation.
Figure 2 shows how the wetting on the
aluminum surface.

Fig. 4: Stress-strain curve for L.C welded with Brass

Fig. 2: surface tension forces acting when a liquid
droplet wets aluminum surface.
The closed square butt joint failed
because of the heat source (Manual torch).
Manual torch can't keep the amount of heat,
because of the human error, it is changing the
melting filler metal under these circumstances to
turn into viscous metal because the viscous filler
metal can't inter the gap between two welded
metal. As shown in figure 3.
and Copper samples.
In figure 4, it is noticed that there is a
difference in stress-strain curve behavior
between the six samples. This is noticed for
sample 2 in which the highest stress is 204.1
MPa at strain 0.027. This can be justified by the
picture no.2 in figure 5.

3

Fig. 5: Surface cracks noticed in penetrant test
for samples (1) to (6).
In figure 5 sample 1, there are two
surface cracks (no wetting because of some
oxides or other coating). The crack is big and
the shapes of paint give us an indication of the
shape of the crack which looks like longitudinal
crack. For sample 2, there is no surface crack.
For samples 3,4 and 6 no defect but there is
some roughness noticed on the surface from the
pictures. For sample 5, there is surface crack. It
looks like circular which indicates that the point
has more strength. On the other hand the
difference in strain because of the ductility of
the sample becomes smaller when there are
many cracks.
Fig. 6 Stress-strain curve for M.C welded with
Brass and Copper samples.
In figure 6, it is noticed that there is a
difference in stress-strain curve behavior
between the six samples. This is noticed for
4
sample 2 in which the highest stress is 233.3
MPa at a strain of 0.028. This can be justified by
picture no.2 in figure 7.
Fig. 7 Surface cracks noticed in penetrant test
for all samples.
In figure 7 of samples 1, 2, 3 and 6,
there is some roughness on the surface. For
samples 4 and 5 there is two lacks of fusion
defects. It is very big because there is a big
amount of paint spreading out from the
crack after sprayed the developer and the
shape of paint give us an indication that the
shape of the crack looks like longitudinal
crack.
Fig. 8 Stress-strain curve for H.C welded with
Brass and Copper samples.
In figure 8, it is noticed that there is a
difference in stress-strain curve behavior
between the six samples.
This is noticed for sample 1 in which the defect will be tested in fatigue test and ignored
highest stress is 243.1MPa at a strain of in the curve to give us a perfect curve.
0.037. This can be noticed in picture no.1 of
figure 9.

Fig. 10: (σ Vs log(N)) curve for H.C with

copper fatigue samples.

In figure 10 there are two points that

are out of the curve. All of these points were
detected before fatigue test using nondestructive
Fig. 9 Surface cracks noticed in penetrant test testing has been performed. Figure 11,
for all samples. illustrates the case.

In figure 9 samples 1, 5 and 6 there

is defect and some roughness on the surface.
For samples 2 and 4 there is a small crack. It
can be detected from the amount of paint
noticed. In sample 3 there is a lack of
fusion. It is very big because there is a big
amount of paint spreading out from the
crack after sprayed the developer and the
shape of paint give us an indication of the
shape of the crack which is kind of
longitudinal crack. Fig. 11: Surface cracks noticed in penetrant test
TABLE 2 TENSILE TEST RESULTES for fatigue samples (a1) and (a2).
In figure 11 there are two samples in
figure 11a which are out of the curve and after
tested by penetrant test, there are many surface
cracks noticed from the picture.

3.2 Analysis of Fatigue Life Testing

Results
In this section stress vs log(N) will be
studied and all types of dissimilar welding will
be compared to determine endurance limit for
each dissimilar welding. Using nondestructive
testing in all samples, any sample shows surface

5
 In figure 14 there is a point that is out of
the curve, which is detected before fatigue test
using nondestructive testing has been performed
as shown in figure 15. After tested by penetrant
test, there is surface crack noticed from the
picture.

Fig. 12 (σ Vs log(N)) curve for H.C with brass

fatigue samples.

In figure 12 there is a point that is out of

the curve. It is detected before fatigue test using
nondestructive testing has been performed
especially for surface crack as in figure 13. After
tested by penetrant test, there is surface crack
noticed from the picture.
Fig. 15 Surface cracks noticed in penetrant test
for fatigue samples L.C with copper.

Fig. 13 Surface cracks noticed in penetrant test

for fatigue samples H.C with brass.
Fig. 16 (σ Vs log(N)) curve for L.C with
brass fatigue samples.
The same notes can be shown in figure
17 which is illustrated using penetrant test in
figure 18.

Fig. 14 (σ Vs log(N)) curve for H.C with copper

fatigue samples.

6

Fig. 18 Surface cracks noticed in penetrant
test for fatigue samples L.C with brass.
Fatigue life test results for
endurance limit for all welding types are
shown in table 3.
TABLE 2 FATIGUE ENDURANCE LIMIT
FOR ALL WELDING TYPE.
4. Conclusions
In this research HC, MC, and LC are
joined with Aluminum, Brass, and Copper using
Manual torch brazing and Bronze C as filler
metal. Brazing aluminum with HC, MC, and LC
had failed due to no wetting. Nondestructive
technique has been used to check samples
fatigue and tension tests. All samples have been
tested efficiently for cyclic loading and axial
tension test. Some conclusions are explained
below:
7
 Closed square butt joint proved that, it
is failed when Manual torch brazing is
used because the melting filler metal
did not inter the gap.
 Single-V butt joint with 30ο is the best
way to braze the joint with Manual
torch brazing, as it better in comparing
with closed square butt joint. Because
the melted filler material has filled
most of the gap between the materials.
 Brazing HC, MC, and LC with brass
give higher strength than brazing it
with copper.
 The fatigue endurance limit for HC,
MC, and LC with brass is higher than
that with copper.
 There is a small difference between
maximum strength of brazing brass
with HC, MC, and LC. The maximum
strength was of brass with H.C, it was
243.1MPa.
 In brazing copper with HC, MC, and
LC, the maximum strength was of
copper with M.C, it was 193.5MPa.
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