cool - welding glass and metal

[id10t]

https://science.slashdot.org/story/19/03/04/2351202/welding-glass-to-metal-is-now-possible-using-an-ultrafast-laser-system-researchers-report

The /. summary -

Scientists from Heriot-Watt University have welded glass and metal together using an ultrafast laser system, in a breakthrough for the manufacturing industry. Various optical materials such as quartz, borosilicate glass and even sapphire were all successfully welded to metals like aluminum, titanium and stainless steel using the Heriot-Watt laser system, which provides very short, picosecond pulses of infrared light in tracks along the materials to fuse them together. The new process could transform the manufacturing sector and have direct applications in the aerospace, defense, optical technology and even healthcare fields.
Professor Duncan Hand, director of the five-university EPSRC Center for Innovative Manufacturing in Laser-based Production Processes based at Heriot-Watt, said: "Traditionally it has been very difficult to weld together dissimilar materials like glass and metal due to their different thermal properties -- the high temperatures and highly different thermal expansions involved cause the glass to shatter. Being able to weld glass and metals together will be a huge step forward in manufacturing and design flexibility."

He added: "The parts to be welded are placed in close contact, and the laser is focused through the optical material to provide a very small and highly intense spot at the interface between the two materials -- we achieved megawatt peak power over an area just a few microns across. This creates a microplasma, like a tiny ball of lightning, inside the material, surrounded by a highly-confined melt region. We tested the welds at -50C to 90C and the welds remained intact, so we know they are robust enough to cope with extreme conditions."

[john70t]

(Also in the world of sinter welding, similar tech, but not as cool as dissimilar-materials blending at the atomic level)

A standardized powder developed by the Air Force to make stronger and more precise replacement parts in the field:

https://techxplore.com/news/2019-03-d-ultra-strong-steel-powder.html
"We're able to print up parts with internal structures that they would not necessarily be able to create with that much dimensional accuracy where they try to use mill or machine part," said Dr. Andelle Kudzal, a materials engineer on McWilliam's team.
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"This material that we've just printed and developed processing perimeters for is probably about 50 percent stronger than anything commercially available," McWilliams said.

[unclebilly]

We were welding nickel alloys to nickel - yitria stabilized zirconia cermet and glass ceramic 19 years ago for Solid Oxide Fuel Cell stacks. One of my patents from about 2004 is specifically on an external manifold fuel cell stack using this very technology. I have a 1 cell prototype somewhere in my office.

Cool stuff, not new but certainly becoming more mainstream.