Effect of surface texture spacing on interface heat transfer and tensile property of laser-welded steel/CFRTP joint

Metal-polymer hybrid joints can contribute to weight reduction and have potential use in transportation industries. In this work, laser texturing was used to enhance bonding strength of laser-welded 304 stainless steel/carbon fiber reinforced thermoplastics (CFRTP) joint. The tight relationship between surface texture spacing and porosity characteristic as well as tensile property of joint was systematically investigated. The temperature field distribution during welding process was simulated and the mechanism of porosity suppression depending on grid spacing was discussed. The result showed that the number of pores at cross-section decreased first and then rose with the increase of micro-structure spacing, which corresponded to the variation trend of bonding strength and was inconsistent with the evolution of connecting area. The joint achieved the minimum porosity defect and reached maximum fracture load of 2594 N when the grid spacing was 1.2 mm, while the maximum joint width of 9.28 mm was obtained when 0.4 mm spacing was adopted, indicating that the joint quality rather than mechanical interlocking governed the mechanical property of joint. Appropriate interface contact conductance (TCC) related to texture spacing could optimize the interface heat dissipation rate, and was the key factor to efficiently control the shrinkage porosity. The TCC of small or large grid spacing was too high or too small, resulting in failure of the heat transfer path through the interface to metal during cooling process. Moreover, the proper texture spacing improved the uniformity of joint strain distribution in tensile-shear testing, which benefited joint strength.