Journal of Materials Processing Technology 210 (2010) 560563

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Journal of Materials Processing Technology

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Effects of processing parameters on the bond strength of Cu/Cu roll-bonded strips

Mohsen Abbasi, Mohammad Reza Toroghinejad
Department of Materials Engineering, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan 84156-83111, Iran

a r t i c l e

i n f o

a b s t r a c t
Roll bonding, widely used in manufacturing large layered composite sheets, is a solid phase method for bonding similar or dissimilar metals by rolling. In this study, the effects of process parameters such as rolling reduction, rolling temperature, rolling speed, initial thickness of strip, and surface roughness on the bond strength between two-layer strips of Cu/Cu were investigated. The strips were subjected to chemical and mechanical cleaning prior to rolling, and after rolling, bond strengths were measured using the peeling test. It was observed that increased reduction, rolling temperature, strip width, and surface roughness led to an increase in peeling strength while increased rolling speed and initial thickness of strips caused peeling strength to decrease. Results also showed that increasing the initial thickness of strips would increase threshold deformation. 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Article history: Received 19 July 2009 Received in revised form 26 October 2009 Accepted 8 November 2009

Keywords: Copper Cold roll bonding Peel strength

1. Introduction Roll bonding is a solid state welding process used to join similar and/or dissimilar metals. According to Pan et al. (1989), it is the most economical and productive manufacturing process that can be used to produce at clad metal sheets and foils. In this process (Fig. 1), two or more metal/alloy strips are stacked together and passed through a pair of rolls. After proper deformation, a solid state joint between the original individual metal pieces will be produced. Before roll bonding, the surfaces to be bonded must be cleaned and prepared. As expressed by Bay and Zhang (1994), the two common methods used to remove contaminants and surface oxides are chemical and mechanical cleaning. It has been reported that cold welding of metals is affected by such parameters as percent of deformation according to Danesh Manesh and Karimi Taheri (2004), strain rate which is considered as the time of welding as reported by Vaidyanath et al. (1959), and welding temperature as mentioned by Pan et al. (1989). Vaidyanath et al. (1959) and Mohamed and Washburn (1975) have claimed that the principal mechanism involved in rolling is what is called the lm theory. They have also expressed that the lm theory has been the major mechanism in cold roll welding because of low temperatures. According to this theory, two opposing brittle surface layers break up during rolling and the underlying base metal is extruded through cracks of the broken layers. Zhang and Bay (1997) identied a threshold value for plastic deformation (Rth ) which is necessary for cold welding to initiate. At deformations higher than Rth , uncontaminated regions are extruded through cracks so

that welding takes place. Also Mohamed and Washburn (1975) and Parks (1953) have put forward different theories to account for the mechanism of bonding between strips in the roll bonding process such as the energy barrier theory and the joint recrystallization theory, respectively. Our literature review revealed studies that had been conducted on the roll bonding process of Al (alloys), Ti (alloys), steel, and dissimilar layers such as Al/Zn, Al/steel, etc. However, we came across no study so far investigating the roll bonding process of Cu/Cu sheets. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate the effects of process parameters including rolling reduction, rolling temperature, rolling speed, initial thickness of strip, and surface roughness on bonding.

2. Materials and experimental procedure 2.1. Materials and roll bonding process The chemical composition of the copper sheet used is presented in Table 1. The initial surface roughness of the copper sheets was Ra = 0.25 m. Cold roll welding experiments were carried out using a laboratory rolling mill with a loading capacity of 20 tons. The rolling diameter was 127 mm. The samples for the two-layered bonding were prepared as follows: strips with initial dimensions of 120 mm in length, 30 mm in width, and 0.5 mm thick were cut from a cold rolled sheet, parallel to the original rolling direction. The surfaces were degreased in acetone for 300 s and then scratch brushed using a stainless steel circumferential brush 90 mm in diameter with wires 0.3 mm across running at a rotational speed of 2000 rpm. After surface preparation, the handling of the strips was performed carefully to avoid renewed contamination. Two pieces of the strips

Corresponding author. Tel.: +98 311 3915726; fax: +98 311 3912752. E-mail address: toroghi@cc.iut.ac.ir (M.R. Toroghinejad). 0924-0136/$ see front matter 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2009.11.003

M. Abbasi, M.R. Toroghinejad / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 210 (2010) 560563 Table 1 Chemical composition of copper sheets. Element Amount Cu (wt%) 99.97 O (wt%) 0.002 Pb (ppm) 86 Fe (ppm) 32.11 Sn (ppm) 18.27 S (ppm) 11.81 Si (ppm) 10.45 Ni (ppm) 9.24 Al (ppm) 7.28 Te (ppm) 7.11 Sb (ppm) 6

561

Bi (ppm) 6

Fig. 1. Schematic illustration of the roll bonding process.

were stacked together by a soft copper wire. To investigate the effects of different parameters, a series of rolling experiments were carried out on this metal combination using the rolling reductions of 55%, 60%, 70%, 80%, and 90%. In order to study the temperature and rolling speed effects on the bond strength between layers, rolling was carried out at temperatures of 373 K, 473 K, 573 K, and 673 K and at rolling speeds of 150 rpm, 300 rpm, 400 rpm, 600 rpm, 800 rpm, and 1000 rpm. Also, the initial thickness of the strips was varied from 0.5 mm to 1 mm and the surface roughness was varied from Ra = 1.1 m to Ra = 6.67 m to determine the effects of other parameters. 2.2. Peel test Bond strengths were measured for roll-bonded sheets using the peel test according to ASTM D903-93 standard. In this test, the breaking-off forces were measured as shown in Fig. 2 and the average peel strengths are calculated from Eq. (1). Average peel strength = average load (N/mm) bond width (1)

Fig. 3. Schematic illustration of peeling test xture.

rolling, the total thickness reduction is one of the most important parameters that affect weld formation. According to Bay (1986), there are two basic bonding mechanisms for scratch brushed surfaces during roll bonding including: 1. The scratch brushing forms a heavy work hardened surface layer on part of surface. This brittle cover layer fractures at small surface expansions and reveals virgin metals which extrudes through the cracks of the cover layer and meets virgin metal of the opposing surface to form a metallic bond. 2. Where no brittle cover layer is present bonding occurs when a threshold surface expansion causing fracture of the contaminant lm has been exceeded. According to lm theory mechanism in roll bonding, the brittle surface layers which result from brushing during the rolling of two strips are subjected to increasing normal pressure to deform in the rolling direction. Therefore, some surface cracks are produced in the surface layer of the strips. Then, the underlying metals are exposed through these cracks so that virgin metal surfaces are extruded. On the other hand the high normal roll pressure on the surfaces leads to produce cracks in the brittle surface layers, so extrusion of these virgin metals is convenient for metal-to-metal and atom-to-

Peel tests were performed using an Instron tensile testing machine with a crosshead speed of 20 mm/min. Fig. 3 illustrates the clamping conguration used in this study. 3. Results and discussion 3.1. Effect of thickness reduction on bond strength Fig. 4 presents the effect of total reduction in thickness on the bond strength of Cu/Cu sheets. The bond strength increased rapidly with total thickness reduction. In cold welding processes like

Fig. 2. Typical plot of peeling force versus peeling distance.

Fig. 4. Variation in peel strength of two-layer strips of Cu/Cu versus total thickness reduction.

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Fig. 5. Variation in peel strength of two-layer strips of Cu/Cu versus rolling temperature.

Fig. 6. Variation in peel strength of two-layer strips of Cu/Cu versus sample thickness.

atom bonding, thus producing metallic bonds. According to Danesh Manesh and Karimi Taheri (2004), increasing the bond strength by increasing total thickness reduction is due to the increase of contact mean pressure and the overlapping surface exposure at the interface with increasing the reduction in thickness. Moreover by increasing the deformation, the number of cracks increased and therefore more virgin metal surfaces were exposed in contact surfaces. Then the area available for atom-to-atom bond was extended, and accordingly the bond strength between layers increased. It can, therefore, be maintained that increased bond strength as a result of increasing total reduction in thickness is due to the enhancement of the rolling pressure, surface expansion, area fraction of cracks, and weld area percentage. Yong et al. (2000) in an analytical model of roll bonding predicted that by increasing the reduction in thickness, the initial bonded area shifts to the entrance of the roll gap. This means that at the time of loading a normal pressure on the Cu/Cu interface, the interface becomes larger and, thus, the bonding is easier to initiate. 3.2. Effect of rolling temperature on bond strength As shown in Fig. 5, enhancement of the rolling temperature increases the bond strength for certain values of thickness reduction. At higher rolling temperatures, the ow stress of metals decreases, which, in turn, increases the ductility and formability of virgin metals in the underlying surfaces and enhances their extrusion through more cracks in the contact surfaces. On the other hand, an increase in the rolling temperature may lead to a greater degree of recovery and recrystallization of the metals to soften the material. According to Bay (1986), when the soft work piece metal is deformed plastically, friction against the hard brittle cover layer causes a buildup of tangential stress, t , in this lm. When t reaches the tensile strength of the cover layer, this will fracture and the tangential stress drops to zero next to the point of fracture. t is built up in the same way in the rest of the cover layer. As the metals become softer, the effect of deformation increases, resulting in fragmentation of the brittle layer and formation of a stronger bond between the metals. In the warm roll bonding stage of the present study, the metals will react with atmospheric oxygen to form an oxide lm on the metal surface which restricts the physical contact of the two surfaces. On the other hand, plastic deformation would fragment the surface oxide lm and develop physical contact between the metal surfaces. The formation and fragmentation of the surface oxide lm is indeed a dynamic process occurring in the rolling stage. According to Yan and Lenard (2004) at high temperatures, the strength of the hardened work and the oxide layers as well as the bond between the oxide and the parent metal reduces, caus-

ing cracks to form more easily and the area fraction of the cracks thus formed to increase. Peng et al. (1999) suggested that under the combined action of pressure and heat over short periods, the reactions between the metal laminates involve a three-stage process of (1) development of physical contact, (2) activation of the surfaces in contact, and (3) interaction within the materials being joined. It is believed that a similar principle can be applied to the roll bonding process and a strong mechanical bonding should be the major contribution to the higher bond strength of the as-rolled metal laminates. 3.3. Effect of initial thickness of strips on bond strength According to Figs. 6 and 7, by decreasing the initial thickness of Cu strips, the bond strength increases and the threshold reduction decreases. When the initial thickness of strips reduces, the pressure required to reach a certain reduction may increase, which is equal to increasing the threshold deformation. When the total deformation is less than the threshold deformation, fewer cracks, and thereby a negligible number of virgin metal surfaces, are created so that no bonding occurs between the layers in the contact surfaces. According to Yong et al. (2000) the initial thickness of the layers affects the location of the bond point thereby changing bond strength. The initial thickness may also be related to the position of the bond point and may approach the entrance of the roll gap when the initial thickness is reduced. As expressed by Hwang and Kiuchi (1992), the mean contact pressure (P) for multilayer strip rolling was calculated using the

Fig. 7. Variation in threshold deformation in Cu strips versus sample thickness.

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Fig. 8. Variation in peel strength of two-layer strips of Cu/Cu versus rolling speed.

Fig. 9. Variation in peel strength of two-layer strips of Cu/Cu versus surface roughness.

following equation: P= F WL (2) hardening of the sheets increased and caused a more brittle layer to form on the surface that could be broken more easily so that the virgin metal could be extruded more easily as well. 4. Conclusions The bond strength between two-layered Cu/Cu strips in the roll bonding process was measured using the peeling test. The following conclusions may be drawn from the present work: 1. Bond strength is improved by increasing thickness reductions, rolling temperature, and surface roughness of the strips. 2. Bond strength in Cu/Cu strips decreases by increasing the rolling speed and the initial thickness of strips. 3. Increasing the initial thickness of strips decreases the value of threshold deformation to accomplish the bonding between the layers. References
Bay, N., 1986. Cold welding: Part I. Characteristic, bonding mechanisms, bond strength. J. Met. Constr. 18 (6), 369372. Bay, N., Zhang, W., 1994. Inuence of different surface preparation on the bond formation in cold pressure welding. In: Proceedings of the Second European Conference on Joining Technology, Italy, pp. 88379. Danesh Manesh, H., Karimi Taheri, A., 2004. Study of mechanisms of cold roll welding of aluminum alloy to steel strip. J. Mater. Sci. Technol. 20 (8), 10641068. Hwang, Y.M., Kiuchi, M., 1992. Analysis of asymmetrical complex rolling of multilayer sheets by upper bound method. J. Chin. Soc. Mech. Eng. 13 (1), 3345. Mohamed, H.A., Washburn, J., 1975. Mechanism of solid state pressure welding. Weld. J., 302310. Pan, D., Gao, K., Yu, J., 1989. Cold roll bonding of bimetallic sheet and strips. J. Mater. Sci. Technol. 5, 934939. Parks, J.M., 1953. Recrystallization in welding. Weld. J., 209221. Peng, X.K., Heness, G., Yeung, W.Y., 1999. Effect of rolling temperature on interface and bond strength development of roll bonded copper/aluminum metal. J. Mater. Sci. 34, 277281. Vaidyanath, L.R., Nicholas, M.G., Milner, D.R., 1959. Pressure welding by rolling. Br. Weld. J. 6, 1328. Yan, H., Lenard, J.G., 2004. A study of warm and cold roll-bonding of aluminum alloy. J. Mater. Sci. Eng. A 385, 419428. Yong, J., Dashu, P., Dong, L., Luoxing, L., 2000. Analysis of clad sheet bonding by cold rolling. J. Mater. Process. Technol. 105, 3237. Zhang, W., Bay, N., 1997. Cold weldingtheoretical modeling of weld formation. Weld. J., 417420.

where F, W, and L are the rolling force (monitored by the rolling machine), width of strip, and projection of roll-strip contact length, respectively. By increasing the mean contact pressure, average peel strength and bond strength increase. Increased initial thickness increases the roll-strip contact length (L) for a constant reduction thereby reducing the mean contact pressure. Thus, average peel strength and bond strength decrease. 3.4. Effect of rolling speed on bond strength Fig. 8 shows the variations in average peel strength with respect to reduction in thickness for different rolling speeds. It is clear that increasing the rolling speed causes slightly lower values of the bond strength at interfaces. The bond strength is observed to decrease as the speed is increased, leading to shorter times of contact. The increased bond strength can further be related to the insufcient extrusion of virgin metals through cracks resulting from the fracture of the oxide lm or from the work-hardening layer in a short time; thus, it is difcult to bring two surfaces with large areas into contact. In addition, high speeds can result in width changes on the top and in other parts of the specimens. Rolling speed has a twofold effect on the bond. It affects the interface temperature; high speed causes high temperature that is good for the bond. It simultaneously affects the effective time for bonding. The bond strength is observed to decrease as the speed increases, leading to a shorter time of contact. Our results indicate that the time is a more important parameter for rolling speed effects than is temperature. 3.5. Effect of surface roughness on bond strength Fig. 9 shows the effect of surface roughness on the bond strength of Cu/Cu strips. The initial surface roughness (prior to scratch brushing) of the samples was Ra = 0.25 m along both the rolling direction and the transverse direction. Surface roughening by scratch brushing greatly improved the bonding quality, reduced the pressure required to initiate bonding, and gave some of the highest bond strengths. By increasing surface roughness of the sheets, the average peel strength or bond strength increased. This is because work