Cold Welding

cold welding

[′kōld ‚weld·iŋ]

(metallurgy)

Welding in which a molecular bond is obtained by a cold flow of metal under extremely high pressures, without heat; widely used for sealing transistors and quartz crystal holders.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

cold welding

The joining of metals (such as aluminum) at room temperature by subjecting thoroughly cleaned metal surfaces to pressure; coalescence is produced solely by the application of mechanical force.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Architecture and Construction. Copyright © 2003 by McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Cold Welding

 

a method of welding metals without heating by pressing together the parts to be joined. It is usually done at room temperature and at high pressures—up to 1 giganewton per m² (10⁴ kg-force per cm²) or more—that produce plastic flow in the metals. Cold welding is a highly productive and economic process; it is especially suitable for plastic materials (plastics and resins) and metals having a cubic, face-centered, crystal lattice, such as aluminum, copper, nickel, silver, and iron (γ-Fe). The most common application is the cold welding of aluminum and of aluminum with dissimilar metals, such as aluminum with copper; the technique makes it possible to avoid the formation of brittle, low-strength intermetallic compounds at the site of the weld, which occur with normal fusion welding. Cold welding is extensively used in electrical engineering, the aviation industry, and elsewhere.

REFERENCE

Baranov, I. B. Kholodnaia svarka plastichnykh metallov, 3rd ed. Leningrad, 1969.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.