Ultrasonic Welding is the fastest and most cost effective method used today to join and assemble plastic parts and non-ferrous metals. Ultrasonic welding is cost effective and a green technology. Ultrasonic welding eliminates the need to use fasteners, glues and/or solvents.
Ultrasonic Welding can be used to join all rigid thermoplastics, synthetic fabrics and films. Ultrasonic welding uses an acoustic tool called an ultrasonic horn made to match your parts design. Ultrasonic Welding is converted to heat through friction that melts the plastic or metal. The main components of an ultrasonic welding system are the actuator and power supply, converter/booster & ultrasonic horn called the stack, part holding weld fixture/jig.
Ultrasonic Welding for Plastic Parts
For automobiles, ultrasonic welding tends to be used to assemble large plastic and electrical components such as instrument panels, door panels, lamps, air ducts, steering wheels, upholstery and engine components. As plastics have continued to replace other materials in the design and manufacture of automobiles, the assembly and joining of plastic components has increasingly become a critical issue. Some of the advantages for ultrasonic welding are low cycle times, low capital costs, and flexibility. Also, ultrasonic welding does not damage surface finish, which is a crucial consideration for many car manufacturers, because the high-frequency vibrations prevent marks from being generated.
Ultrasonic welding is generally utilized in the aerospace industry when joining thin sheet gauge metals and other lightweight materials. Aluminum is a difficult metal to weld using traditional techniques because of its high thermal conductivity. However, it is one of the easier materials to weld using ultrasonic welding because it is a softer metal and thus a solid-state weld is simple to achieve. Since aluminum is so widely used in the aerospace industry, it follows that ultrasonic welding is an important manufacturing process. Also, with the advent of new composite materials, ultrasonic welding is becoming even more prevalent. It has been used in the bonding of the popular composite material carbon fiber. Numerous studies have been done to find the optimum parameters that will produce quality welds for this material.
