Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!

Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!

Register Log in
  • Congratulations TugboatEng on being selected by the Eng-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

Metal Foam (Aluminum) Welding?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Korichnevijgigant

Korichnevijgigant

Aerospace
Joined
Oct 7, 2009
Messages
133
Location
US
Question for you all.

I have a porous aluminum plate in a forming machine that has developed a crack at one of the bolt hole locations in corner.

I tried to get a new one made, but management doesn't want to pay for a new one and is asking me to repair this one.

Has anyone heard of this being done?

In my mind you wouldn't be able to weld it with any traditional process (i.e. cheap)
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
I highly doubt you would be able to weld this part successfully. If I were in your shoes I would be investigating whether reinforcement with epoxy or a similar product would provide enough improvement in properties to do the job. The next step after that for me would be brazing the damaged area to fill the crack.

Neither of these methods are going to be great at preventing crack propagation.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I think the main problem is that plate it bolts to and the screws are carbon steel and the holes that are cracking the worst are at the edges.

As far as filling it with an epoxy, it needs to be porous to pull a vacuum all around the plate.

I talked to the CWI and welder and they laughed at me, haha
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
If you need full porosity through the whole part, than your only option is going to be to buy a new part. Even if you could weld it back together, you would be creating a zone with zero permeability.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You'll never get a clean weld - the vacuum chuck has probably spent many hundreds of hours sucking in stray grease and dirt from the machining process, fully coating all the internal pores of the material. The welder would fight spatter and lack of fusion forever when trying to lay down a weld bead.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

metboss
  • Question Question
Welding Procedure Specification (WPS) for the base metal AISI 8630(weld overlay cladding
Replies
2
Views
542
gtaw
gtaw
Engingeeer
  • Question Question
nut welding fixture
Replies
2
Views
13K
Engingeeer
Engingeeer
IdanPV
  • Question Question
Welding of S355JR
Replies
1
Views
476
kingnero
kingnero
Cormet
  • Question Question
Dissimilar Metal Weld Qualification
Replies
5
Views
2K
David3399
D
SAEEDGH
  • Question Question
stud welding manufacture process
Replies
3
Views
717
mfgenggear
mfgenggear

Part and Inventory Search

Sponsor

Back
Top