Laser Assisted Joining of Plastic Metal Hybrids

Hybrid components combine the contradictory characteristics of plastics and metal and thus can lead to advantageous construction part properties. As a result light and concomitantly stiff components can be produced. Therefore, the need for joining these dissimilar materials is a central challenge. A new approach to overcome the problems of state-of-the-art technologies is using laser radiation to ablate the metal surface in order to create microstructures with undercut grooves. When the above placed plastic is melted with laser radiation or induction joining, the material expands into these structures through external clamping pressure and after setting the joining results due to microclamping.