What Are The Advantages Of Cold Welding?
While traditional hot welding techniques work well on some metal fabrication projects, cold welding is a better option on others. How does cold welding work and what are the benefits of using this process?
What Is Cold Welding?
Regular welding uses heat to fuse two pieces of metal together. However, cold welding doesn't need heat to work. This process uses pressure as a bond.
At the start of this process, you prepare your materials to remove their oxide layers. This helps the materials to stick together.
You then apply high levels of pressure on the parts of the metal you need to bond together. This pressure creates a metallurgical bond that brings the two parts together and connects them into one piece.
What Are the Benefits of Cold Welding
One of the main benefits of cold welding is the fact that you don't have to use any heat to bond your materials. There are some advantages to using cold pressure rather than heat here.
Hot welding is effective; however, it can change the composition of the materials you work on. The heat you use to weld can affect the materials.
In some cases, you see a chemical change. This change makes the welded areas less strong than the materials that surround them.
Plus, this process doesn't always leave clean welds that give you perfect cosmetic bonds. Some hot welding techniques leave you with obvious weld areas or some damage around them.
Cold welding doesn't change your materials in this way. You get strong and effective welds that look better cosmetically. They look smooth and even. This is an important factor if you need your fabricated parts to both look good and to be strong and durable.
If you use regular welding, then you also have limits on the materials you're trying to join together. For example, it's sometimes more difficult to weld together two different types of metal because they react differently to heat.
This can even be a problem if you're trying to bond the same metals together when they have different compositions. For example, two different grades of aluminum alloy might not react perfectly to a hot weld.
If you use cold welding, then you can weld different metals and alloys together more easily. Once you take heat out of the process and use pressure, then you eliminate these bonding problems.
To learn more about cold welding services or metal fabrication, contact a local professional.