Joining of metallic glasses in liquid via ultrasonic vibrations

• Published in: Nature Communications
• Main Authors: Li, Luyao, Li, Xin, Huang, Zhiyuan, Huang, Jinbiao, Liu, Zehang, Fu, Jianan, Wen, Wenxin, Zhang, Yu, Huang, Shike, Ren, Shuai, Ma, Jiang
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Nature Publishing Group UK 2023
• Subjects: Article; Arctic
• Online Access: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10562460/; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37813872; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-42014-x

Joining processes especially for metallic materials play critical roles in manufacturing industries and structural applications, therefore they are essential to human life. As a more complex technique, under-liquid joining has far-reaching implications for national defense, offshore mining. Furthermore, up-to-now, the effective joining of metals in extreme environments, such as the flammable organo-solvent or the arctic liquid nitrogen, is still uninvestigated. Therefore, an efficient under-liquid joining approach is urgently called for. Here we report a method to join different types of metallic glasses under water, seawater, alcohol and liquid-nitrogen. The dynamic heterogeneity and liquid-like region expansion induces fluid-like behavior under ultrasonic vibration to promote oxide layer dispersion and metal bonding, allowing metallic glasses to be successfully joined in heat-free conditions, while still exhibiting excellent tensile strength (1522 MPa), bending strength (2930 MPa) and improved corrosion properties. Our results provide a promising strategy for manufacturing under offshore, polar, oil-gas and space environments.