Investigating the joining of PMMA plastic to steel by Nd:YAG laser

Due to the effort of weight reduction in the manufacturing of vehicles, the application and therefore the joining of different materials such as plastics and metals play more and more important role in the development of the joining processes nowadays. In this research work, the joining of PMMA plastic sheets and unalloyed steel pins was investigated. The authors applied Nd:YAG laser beam to create the bond, and tensile tests were carried out to analyse how the strength of the joint is influenced by the heating time, the penetration depth of the steel workpieces in the plastic and the surface roughness of steel. The observed bubble formation and the tearing characteristics were also studied.