As part of its ongoing research into ultrasonic welding technology, the Institute of Materials Science and Engineering is pioneering techniques for joining carbon fiber reinforced composites with metal components through ultrasonic welding.

For this project we used ultrasonic metal welding to produce direct joints between the carbon fibers of a reinforced composite and metallic sheets. Besides spot welding we achieved circular joints by ultrasonic metal torsion welding. Further, by using the ultrasonic roll seam welding technique, we were able to produce linear joints between metal sheets and carbon fiber reinforced composites. The benefits of such pressure welding techniques are the low thermal and mechanical impacts on the joint materials.