Microstructure and mechanical properties of resistance spot welded dissimilar aluminum/steel joints fabricated using high entropy alloy as interlayer

To improve the welding quality of Al/steel joint during resistance spot welding (RSW) process, a CoCrFeNiMn high entropy alloy (HEA) sheet was employed to be an interlayer between aluminum alloy and high strength steel parent metal sheets. Through a series of comparative studies and analyses, the Al/steel spot welded joint obtained from the process with the HEA interlayer had a larger aluminum nugget diameter and thinner intermetallic compound (IMC) layer when compared to a conventional RSW process. When the thicknesses of two parent metal sheets were 1.0 mm or 1.5 mm, the aluminum nugget diameter of the Al/steel spot welded joint with the HEA interlayer were 4.904 mm and 5.962 mm, and respectively increases by 28.41% and 31.32% compared to a conventional RSW process. For the 1.5 mm of the thickness of the parent metal sheets, the HEA interlayer can make the layer thicknesses at the Al/steel faying interface decrease from 3.2 μm to 1.3 μm. Also, adding the HEA interlayer could induce more welding heat energy respectively by 30.74% and 30.34%, and significantly improve the lap-shear strength of the joint by 56.95% and 52.09% for two thicknesses of the parent metal sheets. Even increasing welding current of the process without HEA interlayer to make its calculated welding heat energy the same as that with HEA interlayer, the Al/steel joint obtained from the process with HEA interlayer still had a higher lap-shear strength. In addition, by seriously observing and analyzing the fracture surfaces obtained from processes with and without the HEA interlayer, it could be concluded that the HEA interlayer could improve the fracture mode of the Al/steel joint from interfacial fracture to button fracture, so the quality of the Al/steel joint could be improved. This work can supply an effective method to improve the dissimilar metals welding process.