Ultrasonic roll seam welding for the production of glass/metal compounds

Abstract

The joining technology of glasses and glass-ceramics with metal is growing in importance in view of the increased application possibilities of such Compound parts in the machinery and electronics industries. A new method has recently gone into competition with the current production methods of these Compounds such as melting, soldering and glueing. This novel method is ultrasonic welding. So far this joining technology has only been applied in ultrasonic spot welding. However, it is n ow possible to manufacture Compounds with a shear strength of up to 50 MP a at low temperatures (< 400°C) in short periods of time (< 1.5 s). To extend the application of ultrasonic welding the Department of Materials Science at the University of Kaiserslautern (Germany) has constructed and put into Operation an ultrasonic roll seam welding machine for the continuous and intermittent joining of glass and glass-ceramics with metal. So far this device has, among other things, been used to join a borosilicate and a soda-lime-silica glass with several kinds of high alloyed steel, an aluminium alloy and the glass sealing alloy KOVAR (NiCo 29 17) with the addition of a thin intermediate layer of aluminium. By means of systematic studies of the parameters feed, welding force and amplitude, that significantly influence the welding process, an optimization of the Compound strength has been achieved.