Quote:
Originally Posted by Tin Man
Well, Rusty`, just my luck! Wonder why Ranger got all of the hot jobs and cinematic opportunities, albeit representing Enterprise!
Welding steel to Al, that`s impressive too, tried it on several occasions when I shouldn`t have really, failing miserably! How did you manage it? Laser brazing?
They can do it without using any flux at all now. Or GMAW?
|
The trick is to slip a 1 1/4 inch thick plate of BI-METAL in between. The top is aluminum and the bottom is steel. They are fused together with Ammonium Nitrate high explosives. The explosive is on top and the ignition started in one corner. There is a slight gap between the aluminum and the steel. As the explosion moves toward the other corner, the two metals create a sheet of Plasma shooting out the same direction as the explosion. This Plasma sheet not only fuses the two metals together by heat, but actually creates ripples in their surfaces that hook together like Velcro. So it is mechanically bonded as well as heat bonded.
Today, all aluminum structures attached to steel decks of ships use a strip of this metal welded to a steel coaming on deck and you can weld the aluminum deckhouse to it. There is a MIL-SPEC on it called Bi-Metallic joint. Commercially it was invented by DuPont and is also known as Data Clad.
It must work as (according to my personal log book) I issued the Pole Mast plan for the Ranger on August 3, 1973.