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Alloyed Fluxes of Aluminum–Stainless Steel Arc Brazing

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Abstract

Alloyed fluxes consisting of the non-corrosive flux KAlF4 and alloyed elements Cu, Mn, Ni, and Zr were investigated, respectively, for aluminum–stainless steel TIG brazing. All the alloyed fluxes could both increase the spreading area and decrease the IMC thickness notably. Utilizing the unalloyed flux in the standard braze alloy as a control for comparison, the area increased from 55.3 to 98.5 mm2 with 30% Mn alloyed flux and the thickness was reduced from 15.1 to 4.1 μm with 10% Ni alloyed flux, in maximum. The variation tendencies of spreading area and IMC thickness with element content were obviously different. The change of wetting and spreading behavior was attributed to the combination effect of flux and alloyed elements. The IMC decreased with the alloyed elements was related to the change of dissolution rate of the stainless steel into the liquid aluminum.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to appreciate the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51605263), Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation, China (Grant No. BS2015ZZ005), and a Project of Shandong Province Higher Educational Science and Technology Program (Grant No. J16LA59).

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Correspondence to Huan He.

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He, H., Wu, C., Liu, Y. et al. Alloyed Fluxes of Aluminum–Stainless Steel Arc Brazing. Metallogr. Microstruct. Anal. 6, 150–157 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13632-017-0348-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13632-017-0348-7

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