scholarly journals Orbital Ultrasonic Welding of Ti-Fittings to CFRP-Tubes

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 30
Author(s):  
Moritz Liesegang ◽  
Sophie Arweiler ◽  
Tilmann Beck ◽  
Frank Balle

Hybrid structures are important for the automotive and aeronautical industry as they have the potential to reduce vehicle or aircraft weight and to improve fuel efficiency. Continuous ultrasonic metal welding is a promising technique for hydraulic applications in aircraft to realise tubular metal/fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) hybrids. Fluid proof connections between dissimilar components can be joined by continuous welding seams. Tubular metal/FRP hybrids, produced by a new advanced variant of ultrasonic metal welding, are investigated as a potential substitute for metallic hydraulic tubes. The oscillating welding system moves around the tubular joining partners to generate a sealed orbital connection. Homogeneous joint quality is required to assure the requested component strength. Therefore, the amplitude of sonotrode displacement and the welding force are controlled to keep the induced welding energy constant and the joint quality uniform. High mechanical strength is required for a safe application in the 5000 psi hydraulic system of current and future aircraft concepts. For this study metal injection molded (MIM) titanium fittings (TiAl6V4) and carbon fiber reinforced PEEK (CF-PEEK) tubes were investigated. Process parameters for metal/FRP hybrid joining were evaluated considering their mechanical and technological properties, as well as the microstructure of the hybrid interfacial area. The entire joining area of tubular joining partners has to be in close contact before welding to assure a continuous tight joint. Hence, the titanium fitting is thermally shrunk onto the CFRP tube before ultrasonic welding. The presented orbital ultrasonic welding technology was developed for prospective industrial use and future applications of ultrasonically welded tubular multi-material-components.

Author(s):  
Shailendra Yadav ◽  
Charalabos Doumanidis

This paper addresses a novel non-thermal Ultrasonic Rapid Manufacturing (URM), for layered parts based on Ultrasonic Metal Welding (USW). Its laboratory implementation, automation and integration are described first. The thermo-mechanical process aspects (i.e. heat generation and resulting temperature effects) during each cycle of ultrasonic welding are then studied. The technical advantages of ultrasonic welding process, including fabrication of dense, full-strength functional solid metal parts, multi-material composites, and active parts with embedded intelligent components and electronic, mechatronic, optic and fluidic structures, are examined.


Author(s):  
Weihong (Grace) Guo ◽  
Jionghua (Judy) Jin ◽  
S. Jack Hu

Sensor signals acquired during the manufacturing process contain rich information that can be used to facilitate effective monitoring of operational quality, early detection of system anomalies, and quick diagnosis of fault root causes. This paper develops a method for effective monitoring and diagnosis of multisensor heterogeneous profile data based on multilinear discriminant analysis. The proposed method operates directly on the multistream profiles and then extracts uncorrelated discriminative features through tensor-to-vector projection, and thus, preserving the interrelationship of different sensors. The extracted features are then fed into classifiers to detect faulty operations and recognize fault types. The developed method is demonstrated with both simulated and real data from ultrasonic metal welding.


Author(s):  
Bongsu Kang ◽  
Wayne Cai ◽  
Chin-An Tan

Ultrasonic metal welding for battery tabs must be performed with 100% reliability in battery pack manufacturing as the failure of a single weld essentially results in a battery that is inoperative or cannot deliver the required power due to the electrical short caused by the failed weld. In ultrasonic metal welding processes, high-frequency ultrasonic energy is used to generate an oscillating shear force (sonotrode force) at the interface between a sonotrode and few metal sheets to produce solid-state bonds between the sheets clamped under a normal force. These forces, which influence the power needed to produce the weld and the weld quality, strongly depend on the mechanical and structural properties of the weld parts and fixtures in addition to various welding process parameters such as weld frequencies and amplitudes. In this work, the effect of structural vibration of the battery tab on the required sonotrode force during ultrasonic welding is studied by applying a longitudinal vibration model for the battery tab. It is found that the sonotrode force is greatly influenced by the kinetic properties, quantified by the equivalent mass and equivalent stiffness, of the battery tab and cell pouch interface. This study provides a fundamental understanding of battery tab dynamics during ultrasonic welding and its effects on weld quality, and thus provides useful guidelines for design and welding of battery tabs from tab dynamics point of view.


Author(s):  
S. Shawn Lee ◽  
Tae H. Kim ◽  
S. Jack Hu ◽  
Wayne W. Cai ◽  
Jingjing Li ◽  
...  

Manufacturing of lithium-ion battery packs for electric or hybrid electric vehicles requires a significant amount of joining such as welding to meet desired power and capacity needs. However, conventional fusion welding processes such as resistance spot welding and laser welding face difficulties in joining multiple sheets of highly conductive, dissimilar materials with large weld areas. Ultrasonic metal welding overcomes these difficulties by using its inherent advantages derived from its solid-state process characteristics. Although ultrasonic metal welding is well-qualified for battery manufacturing, there is a lack of scientific quality guidelines for implementing ultrasonic welding in volume production. In order to establish such quality guidelines, this paper first identifies a number of critical weld attributes that determine the quality of welds by experimentally characterizing the weld formation over time. Samples of different weld quality were cross-sectioned and characterized with optical microscopy, scanning electronic microscopy (SEM), and hardness measurements in order to identify the relationship between physical weld attributes and weld performance. A novel microstructural classification method for the weld region of an ultrasonic metal weld is introduced to complete the weld quality characterization. The methodology provided in this paper links process parameters to weld performance through physical weld attributes.


2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Shawn Lee ◽  
Chenhui Shao ◽  
Tae Hyung Kim ◽  
S. Jack Hu ◽  
Elijah Kannatey-Asibu ◽  
...  

Online process monitoring in ultrasonic welding of automotive lithium-ion batteries is essential for robust and reliable battery pack assembly. Effective quality monitoring algorithms have been developed to identify out of control parts by applying purely statistical classification methods. However, such methods do not provide the deep physical understanding of the manufacturing process that is necessary to provide diagnostic capability when the process is out of control. The purpose of this study is to determine the physical correlation between ultrasonic welding signal features and the ultrasonic welding process conditions and ultimately joint performance. A deep understanding in these relationships will enable a significant reduction in production launch time and cost, improve process design for ultrasonic welding, and reduce operational downtime through advanced diagnostic methods. In this study, the fundamental physics behind the ultrasonic welding process is investigated using two process signals, weld power and horn displacement. Several online features are identified by examining those signals and their variations under abnormal process conditions. The joint quality is predicted by correlating such online features to weld attributes such as bond density and post-weld thickness that directly impact the weld performance. This study provides a guideline for feature selection and advanced diagnostics to achieve a reliable online quality monitoring system in ultrasonic metal welding.


2013 ◽  
Vol 658 ◽  
pp. 202-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dong Sam Park ◽  
Ho Su Jang ◽  
Woo Yeol Park

This paper gives a description of an experimental study on the ultrasonic welding of metals. In ultrasonic metal welding, high frequency vibrations are combined with pressure to join two materials together quickly and securely, without generating large amount of heat. Horn, a key part of ultrasonic welding machine, should be designed very accurately to get the natural frequencies and vibration mode required. In this study, a horn is designed and developed for ultrasonic welding of Cu sheets. The tensile strength of welded parts is investigated for evaluation of weldability. Experimental parameters of welding test is set as follows; welding time 0.4s ~ 3.4sec. and vibration amplitude 40%, 60%, 80% and welding pressure 1.5bar, 2.0bar, 2.5bar. Samples are Cu sheets of 0.1mm thickness. Experimental results showed that the tensile strength increase as welding parameters increase, but when welding pressure is excessive, the tensile strength decrease due to fracture of the Cu sheets caused by over-welding. These results could be successfully applied for ultrasonic metal welding in various fields of manufacturing industry.


Author(s):  
S. Shawn Lee ◽  
Tae Hyung Kim ◽  
S. Jack Hu ◽  
Wayne W. Cai ◽  
Jeffrey A. Abell ◽  
...  

Manufacturing of lithium-ion battery packs for electric or hybrid electric vehicles requires a significant amount of joining, such as welding, to meet the desired power and capacity needs. However, conventional fusion welding processes, such as resistance spot welding and laser welding, face difficulties in joining multiple sheets of highly conductive, dissimilar materials to create large weld areas. Ultrasonic metal welding overcomes these difficulties by using its inherent advantages derived from its solid-state process characteristics. Although ultrasonic metal welding is well-qualified for battery manufacturing, there is a lack of scientific quality guidelines for implementing ultrasonic welding in volume production. In order to establish such quality guidelines, this paper first identifies a number of critical weld attributes that determine the quality of welds by experimentally characterizing the weld formation over time using copper-to-copper welding as an example. Samples of different weld quality were cross-sectioned and characterized with optical microscopy, scanning electronic microscopy (SEM), and hardness measurements in order to identify the relationship between physical weld attributes and weld performance. A novel microstructural classification method for the weld region of an ultrasonic metal weld is introduced to complete the weld quality characterization. The methodology provided in this paper links process parameters to weld performance through physical weld attributes.


Author(s):  
S. Shawn Lee ◽  
Chenhui Shao ◽  
Tae Hyung Kim ◽  
S. Jack Hu ◽  
Elijah Kannatey-Asibu ◽  
...  

Online process monitoring in ultrasonic welding of automotive lithium-ion batteries is essential for robust and reliable battery pack assembly. Effective quality monitoring algorithms have been developed to identify out of control parts by applying purely statistical classification methods. However, such methods do not provide the deep physical understanding of the manufacturing process that is necessary to provide diagnostic capability when the process is out of control. The purpose of this study is to determine the physical correlation between ultrasonic welding signal features and the ultrasonic welding process conditions and ultimately joint performance. A deep understanding in these relationships will enable a significant reduction in production launch time and cost, improve process design for ultrasonic welding, and reduce operational downtime through advanced diagnostic methods. In this study, the fundamental physics behind the ultrasonic welding process is investigated using two process signals, weld power and horn displacement. Several online features are identified by examining those signals and their variations under abnormal process conditions. The joint quality is predicted by correlating such online features to weld attributes such as bond density and postweld thickness that directly impact the weld performance. This study provides a guideline for feature selection and advanced diagnostics to achieve a reliable online quality monitoring system in ultrasonic metal welding.


Author(s):  
Bongsu Kang ◽  
Wayne Cai ◽  
Chin-An Tan

Ultrasonic metal welding is widely used for joining multiple layers of dissimilar metals, such as aluminum/copper battery tabs welding onto copper busbars. It is therefore important to have a robust product/process design using ultrasonic metal welding that ensures consistent welds with desired quality. In this work, the effects of longitudinal and flexural vibrations of the battery tab during ultrasonic welding on the development of axial normal stresses that occasionally cause cracks near the weld area are studied by applying a one-dimensional continuous vibration model for the battery tab. Analysis results indicate that fracture could occur near the weld area, due to low cycle fatigue as a result of large dynamic stresses induced by resonant flexural vibration of the battery tab during welding. This study provides a fundamental understanding of battery tab dynamics during ultrasonic welding and its effects on weld quality, and can be used to develop guidelines for product/process design of ultrasonically welded battery tabs.


Author(s):  
Bongsu Kang ◽  
Wayne Cai ◽  
Chin-An Tan

Ultrasonic metal welding (USMW) for battery tabs must be performed with 100% reliability in battery pack manufacturing as the failure of a single weld essentially results in a battery that is inoperative or cannot deliver the required power due to the electrical short caused by the failed weld. In ultrasonic metal welding processes, high-frequency ultrasonic energy is used to generate an oscillating shear force (sonotrode force) at the interface between a sonotrode and few metal sheets to produce solid-state bonds between the sheets clamped under a normal force. These forces, which influence the power needed to produce the weld and the weld quality, strongly depend on the mechanical and structural properties of the weld parts and fixtures in addition to various welding process parameters, such as weld frequencies and amplitudes. In this work, the effect of structural vibration of the battery tab on the required sonotrode force during ultrasonic welding is studied by applying a longitudinal vibration model for the battery tab. It is found that the sonotrode force is greatly influenced by the kinetic properties, quantified by the equivalent mass, equivalent stiffness, and equivalent viscous damping, of the battery tab and cell pouch interface. This study provides a fundamental understanding of battery tab dynamics during ultrasonic welding and its effect on weld quality, and thus provides a guideline for design and welding of battery tabs from tab dynamics point of view.


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