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In recent years, there has been a growing interest in composite components, which may be designed to provide enhanced mechanical and physical effective properties. One of the methods available to produce such components is joining by plastic deformation, which results in metallurgical bonding at the interface. However, the portions of the interface that are bonded and the inhomogeneity in the bonding strength achieved at the interface tend to be overlooked. In the present study, Al6061 beams were bonded, by hot compression (300–500 °C) to different degrees of reduction. The compression was followed by tensile debonding experiments and the revealed interface was microscopically characterized in order to determine the areas that were metallurgically bonded. The SEM characterization revealed that the actual bonded area is much smaller than the interface contact area. Thermo-mechanical finite element models of the compression stage were used to investigate the thermo-mechanical fields, which develop along the interface and influence the resulting bonding strength. The principal strain field patterns across the interface area were shown to be similar to the experimentally observed temperature-dependent bonding patterns. In addition, a quantitative criterion for bonding quality was implemented and shown to correlate with the experimental findings.

Diffusion bonding experiments followed by tensile testing were conducted on cylindrical pairs of AA6061–AA1050 aluminum alloys. The influence of bonding time, atmosphere and surface roughness on the resulting interface strength was studied. Metallurgical characterization was performed to study the quality of the bonded interface for different process conditions, and also to investigate the process of oxide formation on the specimen surface. Finite element analysis of the bonding experiments was used to study the thermo-mechanical fields during the bonding process. Using a cohesive zone approach for modelling the bonded interface, the bond strength for the different process parameters was quantified. The results demonstrate that high bond strength can be obtained even for specimens bonded in an air furnace, provided the surface roughness is low. When the surface roughness increases, specimens bonded in air show a reduction in interface strength, which is not observed for specimens bonded in vacuum. Inspection of the bonded interface suggests that this reduction in interface strength can be attributed to oxidation and pockets of air trapped between the asperities of the contact surface, which hinder diffusion and plastic flow.

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