Cold Welding: A Welding Phenomenon Without Heat
Is welding without heat possible?
We all have heard about welding. It is a process in which two metals are heated to a similar melting point and fused or joined together.
But have you ever imagined why they don’t fuse or join at room temperature? To an utter amazement you will be surprised to know that metals fuse without heating in SPACE. And this type of welding that does not uses heat is termed as COLD WELDING.
What is COLD WELDING?
Cold Welding is a process where two metals are joined together by forcing them so hard that the protective layer around the surface is destroyed and they get adhesive to each other without having the metals heated.
What Happens In Space?
Long years before when astronauts conducted the first American Spacewalk, the spacecraft faced a problem that the hatch of it got stuck and the door would not close. After a struggle for an hour they however got through it but were not aware of the source of the problem. After this incident they made more research and came to know about the fact of cold welding. Another incident occurred in space when Galileo spacecraft was on its way to Jupiter, and its antenna got stuck and did not open due to cold welding. These problems forced researchers to put more insight on the fact of cold welding.
On Earth, any metal reacts with the oxygen present in the atmosphere and produces an oxide layer above the surfaces. This oxidation layer is known as corrosion. This layer acts as a protective layer that does not allow the metals to join. Whereas in space, there is no atmosphere, only vacuum. There is no protective layer on metal due to which the atoms of metal combine due to the force created by vacuum.
Therefore, for any metals to be used in space you need to provide a thick layer of protective layer that do not undergo cold welding. Or use of different kinds of metals with different properties can also help avoid unwanted adhesion. This is because cold welding takes place only when two metals are of similar properties.
Benefits Of Cold Welding
After knowing to the harm done by cold welding in space, it would be weird to know that it has some essential benefits too.
It is being widely used on earth by different manufacturing companies.
It is majorly used in nanotechnology. Nanotechnology is all about small and minute components. If heat is used to weld such minute components, they may end up in a mess. Therefore, these tiny components are joined by slight pressure and in the absence of atmosphere.
A major benefit achieved is that less amount of energy is wasted in cold welding as compared to the known welding.
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