Hybrid metal-plastic joining by means of laser

The growing need of lightweight components determined a large exploitation of non metallic materials such as polymers, fibres and elastomers in the industrial production with a consequent request of specifically optimized manufacturing processes. The high optimization demands in terms of cost, weight and productivity of the modern markets determined a growing interest towards hybrid components in which two or more different materials coexist in order to achieve specifically optimized characteristics. According to these considerations the work proposed in this article is aimed at experimentally evaluate the feasibility of joining processes between metal and plastic components by means of the exploitation of a laser source. The metallic material involved in the experimental trials is AISI 304 stainless steel joined in an overlapping configuration with several different polymers: PA66, glass fibre reinforced PA66, carbon fibre reinforced PA66. The laser source involved in this activity was a 100 W CW diode source equipped with a three axis cell. In order to evaluate the results of the joining process a tensile test was carried out on the obtained specimens.