Recent Advances in the Transformative Non-fusion Weld-Brazing Process Used to Join Thin-Gauge Alloys Used in the Automotive Industry

As we rapidly move towards the electrification of modern vehicles, making them lighter and stronger has become as important as ever. This means that the welding and joining techniques we use to build these structures need to evolve to be able to successfully join the advanced materials used for these applications. Weld-brazing (WB) is a novel non-fusion joining technique that has shown excellent promise in the joining of similar and dissimilar metallic alloys. However, existing literature on WB has either treated this process as a form of traditional torch brazing or a form of fusion welding which has made the optimization of the process a significant challenge. Researchers at the University of Waterloo have shown that WB is a joining technique that is fundamentally different from the traditional joining techniques it has been derived from. This study investigates recently discovered critical factors that control the joint integrity for WB applications.