While there exist several options for joining pieces of metal during construction of mechanical parts and machinery, you’ll find that your best choice for this operation will often fall between welding and brazing. However, there are several factors that contribute to brazing being the more effective, potentially superior choice.
What’s the Difference?
- Welding involves applying concentrated heat at an extremely high temperature to melt the base pieces of metal, in addition to a filler material, in order to join the two base pieces of metal into a joint. When it comes to strength, the welded joints are often stronger than the base parts that they join.
- Brazing is executed at a lower temperature than welding, and the process does not involve melting the base pieces of metal. Instead, brazing only melts the filler metal, drawing it into the joint and creating a metallurgical bond. Similarly to welding, the resulting joint from brazing may be stronger than the connected parts. But unlike welding, the lower temperatures means that the physical and mechanical properties of the metals are not affected. This is crucial when it comes to many types of metal construction, as altered mechanical properties can result in various faults in the construction.
Some Other Benefits of Brazing
- Can join dissimilar metals. Unlike welding—which can only be utilized on two pieces of the same type of metal—brazing allows you to join two different types of metals, without affecting the base properties of either one. For example, you can use aluminum braze to join two different types of metal pieces without any adverse affect.
- Easily automated. Brazing is more easily automated than welding, and also incurs fewer expenses to do so. Welding requires a manual approach—which is time consuming as well as expensive—or the installation of pricey equipment to quickly handle a large volume of automated jobs.
- Can braze thinner pieces of metals together. The high heat of welding will only result in melting thinner pieces of metal. Brazing can join them without this consequence.
- Aesthetics. Brazing produces a neater-looking joint than welding can, as welded joints often look irregular. This is important when it comes to pieces that require a pleasing appearance, such as parts for consumer products.
Overall, brazing has many advantages over welding, which can be critical depending on the jobs in which it’s involved. With lower temperatures, easy automation, and relatively no effect on the properties of metals, brazing is quite a brilliant choice when joining metal parts.
Hi-Temp Brazing Inc. provides professional Dip Brazing Services . They are NADCAP accredited for 12 years in all requirements of aluminum dip brazing and related services.
