Microstructure characterization and mechanical properties of laser-welded copper and

aluminum lap joint

Zhiqing Xue, Shengsun Hu, Junqi Shen, Di Zuo, and Elijah Kannatey-Asibu Jr.

Citation: Journal of Laser Applications 26, 012002 (2014); doi: 10.2351/1.4824778

View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.2351/1.4824778
View Table of Contents: http://scitation.aip.org/content/lia/journal/jla/26/1?ver=pdfcov
Published by the Laser Institute of America

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 JOURNAL OF LASER APPLICATIONS VOLUME 26, NUMBER 1 FEBRUARY 2014

Microstructure characterization and mechanical properties of laser-welded

copper and aluminum lap joint
Zhiqing Xue,a) Shengsun Hu, Junqi Shen, and Di Zuo
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
Elijah Kannatey-Asibu, Jr.
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-2125
(Received 12 May 2013; accepted for publication 23 September 2013; published 6 November 2013)
The microstructure in the intermediate layer of a laser-welded Cu–Al lap joint was examined
metallographically. Tensile shear test was performed, and fracture surface analysis was also
performed using scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive spectroscopy. Results
showed that there were several different zones with diverse characteristics of morphology and
composition in the intermediate layer of the weld joint. Banded and cellular structures were
observed in the hypereutectic zone; a lamellar structure was found in the eutectic zone which was
the narrowest zone with the finest microstructure; a dendritic structure was obtained in the
hypoeutectic zone with the coarsest microstructure and widest zone. The joint faulted in the
dendritic hypoeutectic zone, under a combination of brittle and shear mode in the fracture surface.
The maximum shear load of the Cu–Al joint decreased with increasing primary dendrite arm
spacing and the growth of secondary dendrite in the hypoeutectic zone, which was induced by
C 2014 Laser Institute of America. [http://dx.doi.org/10.2351/1.4824778]
increasing laser power. V

Key words: laser welding, copper, aluminum, intermediate layer, mechanical properties, fracture

I. INTRODUCTION However, the microstructure that results from high tem-

perature and composition gradient due to the rapid heating
Welding of a Cu–Al joint poses a significant challenge
and solidification of laser-welded Cu–Al lap joints and its
due to the difference in properties such as melting point,
effect on shear strength has not been investigated in detail so
thermal conductivity, and thermal expansion between the
far. In the present work, a Cu–Al lap joint was laser welded
two metals.1–5 Intermetallic compounds such as Cu2Al,
as outlined in the experimental procedure. The intermediate
Cu2Al3, CuAl, and CuAl2 could be formed during welding of
layer in the joint was examined metallographically to explore
Cu and Al. The mechanical properties of weld joints are
the morphology characteristics, composition distribution,
mainly determined by the resulting microstructure and inter-
and intermetallic compounds. Fracture surface was analyzed
metallic compounds.4,6–9 Although the welding temperature
using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with energy dis-
associated with friction stir welding is much lower than that
persive spectroscopy (EDS) to study the fault mechanism of
of conventional arc welding, it is difficult to avoid the forma-
the Cu–Al joint. The effects of dendritic structure on the ten-
tion of brittle intermetallic compounds in the mixed
sile shear strength of the joint were investigated for different
region.9–11 The intermetallic compounds Cu3Al, Cu4Al3,
laser power levels.
CuAl, and CuAl2 have also been observed in the cold roll
Section II outlines the experimental procedure that was
welded Cu–Al joint although the growth rate of intermetallic
used. This is followed in Sec. III by the results and discus-
compounds was noticeably smaller compared with that of
sion where the microstructure and composition characteris-
the friction stir welding process.7
tics of the Cu–Al joint are analyzed, and subsequently the
Laser welding, with the characteristics of high energy
effect of microstructure and composition characteristics on
density, welding speed, and narrow heat affected zone, is
tensile shear strength is discussed. The conclusions are then
helpful in improving the joint quality.2,4,12,13 Brittle phase in
presented in Sec. IV.
the welding zone of a Cu–Al lap joint produced by laser spot
welding was improved using proper welding parameters and II. EXPERIMENTS
adapted filler materials such as silver, nickel, and tin.2–4
Filler materials based on Al–Si and Cu–Si alloys were used A schematic of the experimental setup is shown in Fig. 1.
to enhance the ductility of the Cu–Al joint by increasing the Laser lap welding of Cu–Al (with Cu on top) was carried out
fluidity of the molten metal, resulting in a more uniform ele- at a welding speed of 100 mm/s and different laser powers
ment intermixture during the welding process.14 using a Nd:YAG laser (JK2003SM) with pure Ar as shielding
gas. The materials were pure aluminum (1060) and copper
(T2) with the same dimensions of 100  20  0.3 mm. The ox-
a)
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; electronic mail: ide film on the surface of each workpiece was removed by
zhiqingxue@126.com. Telephone: þ86 188 1000 7557. mechanical polishing with sand paper before welding. The

1042-346X/2014/26(1)/012002/6/$28.00 012002-1 C 2014 Laser Institute of America

V

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 012002-2 J. Laser Appl., Vol. 26, No. 1, February 2014 Xue et al.

TABLE I. Laser welding parameters.

Laser Welding speed Laser beam Shielding gas

power (W) U (mm s1) radius (mm) flow rate (L min1)

1450 100 0.4 25

1550 100 0.4 25
1650 100 0.4 25
1750 100 0.4 25
1850 100 0.4 25

FIG. 1. Cu–Al lap joint configuration used for laser welding.

setup of the process is shown in Fig. 2, and the welding pa- indicates that the intermediate layer has five zones with
rameters are summarized in Table I. diverse morphology and composition.
For microstructural examination, the workpiece was cut As shown in Fig. 3(b), zone width is defined as the width
perpendicular to the length direction, and each cross-section of one zone. The different zones of Fig. 3(b) are shown in
was ground with 100–1000 grit SiC paper and then polished Fig. 4 under higher magnification. Dendrite arm spacing is
to 0.25 lm using diamond pastes. The samples were metallo- defined as the distance between adjacent dendrite axes as
graphically examined after etching using Keller’s reagent shown in Fig. 4(e).
(with the volume fraction of 1% HF, 1.5% HCl, 2.5% HNO3, Figure 4(a) shows that the microstructure morphology in
and 95% H2O). The microstructure and composition in the zone 1 has banded structure with its axis parallel to the laser
intermediate layer were analyzed by SEM and EDS. Tensile beam. The banded structures consist of well-aligned rods
shear tests were performed with a strength tester which are firmly embedded in the dark grey phase with a
(CCS-44100) to examine the maximum shear strength of the well-defined interface. The rod-like phase has an averaged
joint and base metals. Each test was repeated three times, width of approximately 1.45 lm and a length of 4.04 lm.
and the mechanical properties averaged. Also, the fracture Based on the EDS analysis, the Cu wt. % in the light grey
surface was examined using SEM and EDS. area at point A and dark grey area at point B are 65.3 and
57.1, respectively.
Figure 4(b) indicates that the microstructure morphology
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION of zone 2 is also of the banded structure, oriented at about
30 from the laser beam axis. The rod-like phase has an aver-
A. Microstructure and composition characteristics of
aged width of approximately 1.22 lm and a length of
Cu–Al joint
5.58 lm. The averaged Cu wt. % in the light grey area at
An optical micrograph of the Cu–Al lap joint cross- point C and the dark grey area at point D are 57.8 and 51.5,
section is shown in Fig. 3(a), and an enlargement of the in- respectively.
termediate layer indicated by the dashed square box is dis- In zone 3, as shown in Fig. 4(c), the morphology of the
played in Fig. 3(b). It indicates that there is an obvious nonadjacent light grey area is similar to that in zone 2,
intermediate layer between Cu and Al, similar to what occurs including rod-like and cellular structure. The averaged Cu
in a diffusion welded joint.7 The molten material did not mix wt. % at points E and F are 52.4 and 33.2, respectively.
thoroughly during the high speed welding process since the Figure 4(d) indicates that zone 4 has a lamellar structure.
conditions used resulted in conduction mode rather than key- The a-Al and h phases form co-operatively, and the interlamel-
hole welding. However, there are differences in the micro- lar spacing is about 0.16 lm, which is smaller than that of the
structure morphology and composition distribution under the unidirectionally solidified eutectic interlamellar structure
conditions of high thermal and composition gradient associ- (which is about 1 lm) because of the rapid solidification during
ated with the rapid solidification process. Figure 3(b) laser welding. The eutectic lamellae grow in the principal direc-
tion of heat flow.15 The measured average Cu wt. % is 34.6.
Figure 4(e) reveals that the structure in zone 5 is dendri-
tic, and the primary dendrite axis is almost parallel, but the
primary dendrite arm spacing decreases slowly with increas-
ing Cu weight percentage. The averaged primary dendrite
spacing and length are 1.92 lm and 17.31 lm while Cu wt.
% at points G and H are 17.8 and 14.9, respectively.
Table II presents a summary of the solid phases for the
Cu–Al binary alloy and their corresponding composition
analysis used in this work.8
Based on the Cu–Al binary phase diagram16 and
research on solid phases for the Cu–Al binary alloy and their
corresponding composition,7,8 zone 1 is attributed to a
banded structure with intermetallic compound CuAl embed-
FIG. 2. Picture of laser lap welding setup. ded in a saturated solid solution; the composition of zone 2

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 J. Laser Appl., Vol. 26, No. 1, February 2014 Xue et al. 012002-3

FIG. 3. Micrograph of Cu–Al joint cross-section. (a) Optical micrograph; (b) SEM image of intermediate layer marked by the dashed square box in (a).

falls between that intermetallic compounds CuAl and CuAl2, Figure 5 shows that maximum shear load decreases with
so zone 2 is considered to be a combination of CuAl and increasing laser power in the range of 1450–1850 W. The
CuAl2 with intermetallic compounds embedded in saturated shear loads carried by the welded joint under the different
solid solution; zone 3 is the mixed zone with rod-like and laser powers are lower than the loads carried by the
cellular CuAl2 embedded in a wave eutectic; zone 4 is lamel- unwelded base plates of Cu and Al. The maximum shear
lar eutectic, and zone 5 is dendritic hypoeutectic. load of the joint reaches 540 N (approximately 82% that of
Al) at a laser power of 1450 W.
B. The effect of microstructure and composition In order to determine the effect of the microstructure in
characteristics on tensile shear strength different zones on the mechanical properties of the Cu–Al
The mechanical property of each weld was measured lap joint, fracture surfaces were investigated by SEM and
with a strength tester (CCS-44100). Due to difficulty in accu- EDS, and the Al side fracture surfaces under different laser
rately measuring the load carrying area, the strength in this power inputs are shown in Fig. 6.
work is characterized by the load to which the specimen is The figure shows that the fracture surface is composed
subjected. The maximum tensile loads carried by the base of a plane surface with dents, and the average size of dents
metals Cu and Al are 2570 N and 660 N, respectively. The decrease with increasing laser power. The fracture surface
maximum shear load of the laser-welded Cu–Al joint is analysis results show that the Cu–Al joints faulted in the den-
shown in Fig. 5 for different laser power inputs. dritic hypoeutectic zone for the welding conditions of speed
100 mm/s and laser power in the range of 1450–1550 W.
In Fig. 7, the fracture surface is shown at higher magnifi-
cation for a joint welded using a laser power of 1550 W. The
Cu wt. % at points M, N, P, Q, R, and S are 27.3, 23.7, 16.3,
13.6, 9.3, and 7.7, respectively. The Cu wt. % at points U, V,
and W are 25.8, 29.3, and 28.2, respectively. Based on the
analysis in Sec. III A, fracture is attributed to a dendritic
hypoeutectic structure. Figures 7(c) and 7(d) show that the
fracture surface in the dents consists of a dendrite structure.
A similar dendritic structure was observed across the fracture
surface for an Al–4%Cu produced by casting17,18 and is con-
sidered to be due to brittle failure. The plane fracture surface
is due to shear decohesion, and the appearance of dimples
with an average size of 0.61–1.52 lm [Fig. 7(e)] is supposed
to result from shear failure mode. This can be explained by

TABLE II. Selected phases for Cu–Al system and their corresponding
compositions.

Phases Concentration (wt. % Cu) [Ref. 8]

Al 0.00–6.44
CuAl2 52.46–53.71
CuAl 70.03–72.09
Cu4Al3 74.37–75.21
Cu3Al2 77.44–79.28
Cu9Al4 79.7–83.98
FIG. 4. SEM image of different zones in Fig. 1. (a) Zone 1; (b) zone 2; (c) Cu 90.57–100
zone 3; (d) zone 4; (e) zone 5.

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 012002-4 J. Laser Appl., Vol. 26, No. 1, February 2014 Xue et al.

rods is higher than that of the hypoeutectic zone with parallel

dendrites which is the weak zone of the Cu–Al joint under the
present welding conditions.
In the friction and cold welded Cu–Al joints,19–21 the
fracture surface occurred in intermetallic compound layer.
Thus, intermetallic compounds especially the CuAl2 are usu-
ally considered the brittle phase which led to the fracture of
a Cu–Al joint. However, this study indicates that the banded
intermetallic (CuAl2, CuAl) with well-aligned rod and cellu-
lar structure can improve the tensile shear strength, and the
fracture location is the dendritic hypoeutectic zone. The me-
chanical properties of a Cu–Al lap joint, therefore, can be
improved by laser welding with high welding speed, result-
ing in a banded structure in the intermediate layer.
The intrinsic lattice resistance to dislocation motion along
FIG. 5. Variation of maximum shear load of welded joint with laser power the transverse direction plays an important role in enhancing
(welding velocity, v ¼ 100 mm/s). the rod-like regions, inducing the high shear strength in those
regions. The results of tensile shear strength and fracture surface
the smaller dendrite spacing near the higher Cu concentra- analysis reveal that the banded structure with well-aligned rod-
tion area (point U in Fig. 7(e): Cu wt. % is about 28), com- like phase contributes to strengthening of the Cu–Al lap joint.
pared to that in the dented surface region where the Cu wt. The hypoeutectic zone is a weak region in the joint,
% is relatively small. Fractured particles and delamination playing a significant role in determining the shear strength of
zones were observed on the fracture surface as shown in Fig. the joint. Microstructures in the dendritic hypoeutectic zone
7(e). This can be explained by an increase in the alloy ductil- under different laser power inputs are shown in Fig. 8.
ity due to the increasing Cu concentration compared to that Figures 8(a) and 8(b) show that when the laser power is less
in the region of the dent. Thus, the fracture mode of the than 1650 W, fewer secondary dendritic structures are
Cu–Al joint is a combination of brittle mode in the dent and formed in the hypoeutectic zone. As the laser power
shear mode in the plane fracture surface. increases from 1650 to 1850 W, the secondary dendritic
Fracture surface examination results indicate that the ten- arms begin to grow as a result of the decreasing temperature
sile shear strength of the banded structure with well-aligned gradient in front of the dendrite tip22 since the higher power

FIG. 6. Fracture surface on Al side under different laser powers (welding velocity, v ¼ 100 mm/s): (a) 1450 W; (b) 1550 W; (c) 1650 W; (d) 1750 W; (e)
1850 W.

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 J. Laser Appl., Vol. 26, No. 1, February 2014 Xue et al. 012002-5

FIG. 7. Fracture surface analysis on Al side. (a) Macrograph of fracture; (b) enlargement image of dashed box in (a); (c) enlargement image of left dashed box
in (b); (d) enlargement image of right dashed box in (b); (e) enlargement image of left dashed box in (a).

leads to homogenization of the temperature distribution in with increasing laser power, which leads to the decrease in shear
the fusion zone. In other words, more energy in the fusion strength, as shown in Figs. 9 and 5, respectively. The trend that
zone induces a reduction of solidification rate. The phenom- the tensile strength decreases with increasing dendrite arm spac-
enon that primary dendrite arm spacing increases with ing was also observed in casting of an Al–Cu alloy.24
decreasing temperature gradient and solidification rate was With the foregoing in mind, we postulate that the me-
observed in solidification of a Cu–Al alloy.23,24 chanical property of a Cu–Al lap joint produced by laser
Variation of the primary dendrite arm spacing (PDAS) with welding could be further improved by reducing the primary
laser power in the range of 1450–1850 W is shown in Fig. 9. It dendrite arm spacing in the hypoeutectic zone. This can be
demonstrates that the primary dendrite arm spacing increases performed by optimizing process parameters using the pre-
diction of PDAS model24–26 as a guide. The PDAS d1 (Ref.
22) is expressed as
" #1=2
pffiffiffi rd kp DTf  Ct GTl Dl
d1 ¼ 4 2   : (1)
GTl C0 SRkp DTf

The secondary spacing near the dendrite tip d2 is also

approximated as

d2 ¼ tS nd ; (2)

where DTl is the diffusion coefficient in the liquid in m s2,

C0 is the initial concentration of the solute of the alloy in wt.
%, Ct is solute concentration at the tip in the liquid, kp is the
partition coefficient, GTl is liquid temperature gradient
in  C/m, SR is the advance velocity of the liquidus isotherm
or of the dendrite tip in m s1, nd ¼ 0.3–0.5, rd stands for
dendrite tip radius in meters, tS is solidification time in sec-
onds, and DTf is the liquidus–solidus range in  C given by

mC0 ð1  kp Þ
DT0 ¼ ; (3)
FIG. 8. Dendritic hypoeutectic structure for different laser powers (welding
kp
velocity, v ¼ 100 mm/s): (a) 1450 W; (b) 1550 W; (c) 1650 W; (d) 1750 W;
(e) 1850 W. where m is the liquidus slope in  C/wt. %.

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 012002-6 J. Laser Appl., Vol. 26, No. 1, February 2014 Xue et al.

gratitude to Dr. Kai Sun of the University of Michigan for

useful discussions.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 25
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arm spacing and their effect on microporosity formation in directionally
Zhiqing Xue, Shengsun Hu, Junqi Shen, and Di Zuo
solidified Al-Cu alloy,” J. Mater. Sci. 40, 1599–1609 (2005).
were supported by the National Natural Science Foundation 26
J. D. Hunt, Solidification and Casting of Metals (The Metals of Society,
of China (Grant No. 50975195). The authors express their London, 1979).

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