Experimental study of laser dissimilar joining for Usibor 2000 and Al-T7075 with Tepex 102

Due to the needs of weight reduction in the automobile structures and of time reduction in the Body-In-White (BIW) manufacturing stage, effective and accurate dissimilar joining is demanded to take advantage of metal-polymer structures. Automotive industry is highly interested in the combination of metal alloys and composite materials; however, dissimilar joining of this type of materials without using mechanic or adhesive joining is a challenge. As an alternative to the classical joining techniques, laser technology can be used to join dissimilar materials. In laser direct joining, a laser beam is used to heat the metal and by conduction to heat the polymer up to melting temperature in the interface without reaching degradation temperature. In this work, an experimental procedure is proposed to set the basis of dissimilar joining between metal and composite parts for the automobile industry. To do that, laser texturing on metallic parts was studied and a wide battery of experimental test were performed to obtain the proper joining process parameters for dissimilar joining between Usibor 2000 and Al-T7075 with Tepex 102. Results show that is possible to reach over 17 MPa in lap shear adhesion test which is similar to the performance of typical adhesives used in automotive industry.