Development and testing of carbonaceous tin-based solder composites achieving unprecedented joint performance

Abstract

Weight reduction and improved strength are two common engineering goals in the joining sector to benefit various engineering sectors ranging from transport, aerospace, nuclear to many others. Here, in this paper, we show that the suitable addition of carbon nanomaterials to a tin-based solder material matrix (C-Solder® supplied by Cametics Ltd.) results in two fold strength of soldered composite joints. Single-lap shear joint experiments were conducted on soldered aluminium alloy (6082 T6) substrates. The soldering material was reinforced in different mix ratios (0.01 wt% and 0.05 wt%) by carbon black, graphene and single-walled carbon nanotubes. and benchmarked against the pristine C-solder®. The material characterisation was performed using Vickers micro-indentation, differential scanning calorimetry and nano-indentation whereas functional testing involved mechanical shear tests using single-lap aluminium soldered joints and creep tests. The 0.05 wt.% nanomaterials reinforced solders promoted progressive cohesion failure in the joints as opposed to instantaneous fully disbond failure observed in pristine soldered joints, which suggests potential application in high performance structures where no service load induced adhesion failure is permissible (e.g., aerospace assemblies). The novel innovation developed here will pave the way to achieving low-cost high-performance solder joining without carrying out extensive surface preparations.