The purpose of the report is to summarize discussions from a Ceramic/Metal Brazing: From Fundamentals to Applications Workshop that was held at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, NM on April 4, 2001. Brazing experts and users who bridge common areas of research, design, and manufacturing participated in the exercise. External perspectives on the general state of the science and technology for ceramics and metal brazing were given. Other discussions highlighted and critiqued Sandia's brazing research and engineering programs, including the latest advances in braze modeling and materials characterization. The workshop concluded with a facilitated dialogue that identified critical brazing research needs and opportunities.
The elevated temperature creep properties of the 50Au-50Cu wt% and 47Au-50Cu-3Ni braze alloys have been evaluated over the temperature range 250-850 C. At elevated temperatures, i.e., 450-850 C, both alloys were tested in the annealed condition (2 hrs. 750 C/water quenched). The minimum strain rate properties over this temperature range are well fit by the Garofalo sinh equation. At lower temperatures (250 and 350 C), power law equations were found to characterize the data for both alloys. For samples held long periods of time at 375 C (96 hrs.) and slowly cooled to room temperature, an ordering reaction was observed. For the case of the 50Au-50Cu braze alloy, the stress necessary to reach the same, strain rate increased by about 15% above the baseline data. The limited data for ordered 47Au-50Cu-3Ni alloy reflected a,smaller strength increase. However, the sluggishness of this ordering reaction in both alloys does not appear to pose a problem for braze joints cooled at reasonable rates following brazing.
The main objective of this project was to develop reliable, low-cost techniques for joining silicon nitride (Si{sub 3}N{sub 4}) to itself and to metals. For Si{sub 3}N{sub 4} to be widely used in advanced turbomachinery applications, joining techniques must be developed that are reliable, cost-effective, and manufacturable. This project addressed those needs by developing and testing two Si{sub 3}N{sub 4} joining systems; oxynitride glass joining materials and high temperature braze alloys. Extensive measurements were also made of the mechanical properties and oxidation resistance of the braze materials. Finite element models were used to predict the magnitudes and positions of the stresses in the ceramic regions of ceramic-to-metal joints sleeve and butt joints, similar to the geometries used for stator assemblies.