Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2020 Mar 12;13(6):1284.
doi: 10.3390/ma13061284.

Advances in Ultrasonic Welding of Thermoplastic Composites: A Review

Somen K Bhudolia  1   2 , Goram Gohel  1   2 , Kah Fai Leong  1   2 , Aminul Islam  3
Affiliations
Review

Advances in Ultrasonic Welding of Thermoplastic Composites: A Review

Somen K Bhudolia et al. Materials (Basel). .

Abstract

The ultrasonic welding (UW) technique is an ultra-fast joining process, and it is used to join thermoplastic composite structures, and provides an excellent bonding strength. It is more cost-efficient as opposed to the conventional adhesive, mechanical and other joining methods. This review paper presents the detailed progress made by the scientific and research community to date in the direction of the UW of thermoplastic composites. The focus of this paper is to review the recent development of the ultrasonic welding technique for thermoplastic composites to thermoplastic composites, and to dissimilar materials. Different ultrasonic welding modes and their processing parameters, namely, weld time, weld pressure, amplitude, type of energy directors (EDs) affecting the welding quality and the advantages and disadvantages of UW over other bonding techniques, are summarized. The current state of the ultrasonic welding of thermoplastic composites and their future perspectives are also deliberated.

Keywords: bonding strength; dissimilar materials; energy director; thermoplastic composite; ultrasonic welding.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Different joining techniques for composite materials and their corresponding methods.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Near and Far-field configurations for the ultrasonic welding of thermoplastic polymers and composites.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Schematic of the ultrasonic welding process showing the important parts and the associated accessories.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Types of Ultrasonic welding: (a) Ultrasonic Plastic welding, (b) Ultrasonic metal welding.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Types of welding joints used in ultrasonic welding technique.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Types of Energy Directors (EDs): (a) Triangular ED, (b) Semi-hemispherical ED, (c) Multiple ED, (d) Flat/rectangular ED.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Example of ultrasonically-welded thermoplastic composite (a) microscope image of the welded interface (b) and (c) shows the side and top view of the welded adherends.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Power curve representing the five stages of ultrasonic welding [83]
Figure 9
Figure 9
(a) Schematic of ultrasonic welding configuration (b) Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) fractography of integrated ED-welded fractures sample at maximum LSS.
Figure 10
Figure 10
Fatigue test results for adhesive and ultrasonically-welded configurations for CF/Elium® composites [105] with permission from Elsevier.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Chawla K.K. Composite Materials, Science and Engineering. New York Inc.; New York, NY, USA: 1998.
    1. Bhudolia S.K., Kam K.K., Perrotey P., Joshi S.C. Effect of fixation stitches on out-of-plane response of textile non-crimp fabric composites. J. Ind. Text. 2019;48:1151–1166. doi: 10.1177/1528083718757525. - DOI
    1. Bhudolia S.K., Fischer S., He P.G., Yue C.Y., Joshi S.C., Yang J.L. Design, Manufacturing and Testing of Filament Wound Composite Risers for Marine and Offshore Applications. Mater. Sci. Forum. 2015;813:337–343. doi: 10.4028/www.scientific.net/MSF.813.337. - DOI
    1. Bhudolia S.K., Perrotey P., Joshi S.C. Enhanced Vibration damping and dynamic mechanical characteristics of composites with novel pseudo-thermoset matrix system. Compos. Struct. 2017 doi: 10.1016/j.compstruct.2017.07.093. - DOI
    1. Taillemite S. Arkema Gains Ground in Composites and Launches a Revolutionary Range of Elium Liquid Resins. [(accessed on 12 February 2017)]; Available online: http://www.arkema.com/en/media/news/news-details/Arkema-gains-ground-in-...

LinkOut - more resources