During the cooling process of the molten material, residual stresses appear because the reduced volume of the cooled material cannot fully fill the space formerly occupied by the molten material. The morphology in and around the weld is formed by different factors depending on the material and process parameters. Different morphological structures relate to different mechanical properties. The process parameters and the welding results including morphology and residual stress are linked together. In this article, residual stresses and the mechanical properties of a hot-plate-welded polypropylene specimen with 0.1 wt.-% content of carbon black are investigated in relation to the morphology. Different measurement positions and joining displacements of parts to be joined result in different residual stress states and morphological structures. The higher the joining displacement, the higher the residual stress. Investigations of the morphology show a relation between the size of the alpha spherulites and the joining displacement. Diffractions patterns of wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS) are not able to resolve the beta phase of the specimen.

Additives such as nucleating agents are often used in the processing of plastic products not only for improving production efficiency but also for enhancing mechanical performance. In this work, the short- and long-term tensile strength, the morphology as well as the residual stresses of the welded polypropylene (PP) samples with different fillers (carbon black and special beta-nucleating agents) and different dimensionless joining paths are analyzed. Results obtained are then compared with those that are representative of the initial, filler-free samples. It is shown that, upon using the special beta-nucleating agent, superior long-term tensile strength can be achieved compared to the samples without additives or with carbon black agent (e.g., for the dimensionless joining path of 0.95, the long-term tensile strength of a PP nature sample is characterized by around 400 MPa, whereas by adding beta-nucleating agent 1% the value can be increased by 400% to reach around 2050 MPa). However, adding beta-nucleating agent 1% yields inferior short-term tensile strength. The hole drilling method (HDM) is used for the analysis of residual stresses. It is found that the residual stresses in the weld seam are characterized by low values of the tensile stresses. The residual stresses in the weld seam also can be converted from tensile into compressive stresses by adding the beta nucleating agent. However, this has the disadvantage that with a higher proportion by weight of the beta nucleating agent, the short-term tensile strength of the welded joint becomes lower than that of the other tested bonds.

Laser transmission welding is a non-contact and efficient process technology for joining thermoplastic polymers. In the conventional process, laser sources in the wavelength range of 1 μm are usually used. Therefore, most of the laser radiation is transmitted through the upper joining partner and absorbed only in the lower joining partner. As a result, the possibilities to influence the temperature field especially in the upper joining partner are limited. To overcome these limitations, an additional thulium fiber-laser with a wavelength of 1.94 μm is used in this study and coaxially aligned with a diode laser. The use of an additional thulium fiber-laser leads to a significant absorption in the upper joining partner. Through this approach, it is shown that the temperature field and the weld seam geometry can be influenced by using these two different discrete laser wavelengths. Depending on the intensity distribution of both lasers, an increase of the size of the heat affected zone in the upper joining partner can be observed. In order to develop a better process understanding, a thermal finite element model is built up and verified by comparing the calculated size of the heat affected zone for different process parameters with the experimental data. The model is able to represent the influence of both laser sources on the temperature field and is used to calculate characteristics of the temperature field, such as maximum temperatures or cooling rates. The characteristics are then used to explain the weld seam morphology, such as occurrence and size of spherulitic structures in the weld seam.

Laser transmission welding is a well-known joining technology for welding thermoplastics. Although the process is already used industrially, fundamental process-structure-property relationships are not fully understood and are therefore the subject of current research. One aspect of these mentioned process-structure-property relationships is the interaction between the temperature field during the welding process, the weld seam morphology of semi-crystalline thermoplastics, and the weld seam strength. In this study, the influence of the line energy on the weld seam morphology of polypropylenes is analyzed. For this purpose, the size of spherulites in the weld seam is investigated, as well as different occurring phases of polypropylene (α- and β-phase). It is shown that both the spherulite size of the α-phase and the amount of β-phase increase with increasing line energy. For the explanation and discussion of the results, a temperature-dependent thermal simulation model is used to derive characteristic attributes of the temperature field (maximum temperatures, cooling rates, temperature gradients).