Silicon Nitride Used as Welding Location Pins

Introduction

Silicon nitride is a high-performance ceramic material that is known for its excellent mechanical, thermal, and chemical properties. It is widely used in various industrial applications, including welding, where it serves as a location pin. In this article, we will explore how silicon nitride is utilized as a welding location pin and its benefits. Hope that you can have a better understanding of its features and applications.

What Are Welding Location Pins?

Welding location pins, also known as control pins, are essential tools used in welding to hold parts in place during the welding process. They help maintain the proper alignment of the parts, ensuring that they are correctly positioned for the welding to take place. You can refer to Figure 2. to see the parts in a CMT-Pin welding system [1].

Figure 2. Schematic of CMT-Pin welding process.

Weld location pins are highly heat-resistant and wear-resistant components employed to fix a material into position. They have to stand exceptionally high temperatures since the maximum temperature of the peak is about 3,500°C. Additionally, these pins need to be the most chemically stable materials because there would be corrosive ionized gas and particles.

With these exceptional features, such location pins are applied to a variety of welding applications, including resistance spot welding, seam welding, plasma welding, orbital welding, metal inert gas (MIG) welding, injection welding, and tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding operations.

Related reading: Applications of Silicon Nitride Ceramics

Why Use Silicon Nitride as Welding Location Pins?

Silicon nitride (Si3N4) is an ideal material for welding location pins due to its unique properties.

• --Physical Properties: The compressive strength of silicon nitride is 3000 MPa, while its density is 3.21 g/cm3. Namely, silicon nitride has a high strength-to-weight ratio. It is strong and lightweight at the same time.
• --Thermal Performance: With excellent thermal shock resistance, silicon nitride can withstand rapid temperature changes. Also, as a high-melting-point ceramic, it is typically used in the metallurgical industry. Si3N4 also has low thermal conductivity and great wear resistance.
• --Chemical Stability: Silicon nitride is also highly resistant to wear and corrosion, making it a useful material in harsh welding environments.
• --Dielectric Ability: Besides, this ceramic material is an electrical insulator with a resistivity of 10^7 Ωcm at 800°C, so it will not conduct electricity during the welding process, reducing the risk of electrical arcing. Besides, its dielectric constant is 6, which means that it has a low ability to store electrical energy in an electric field compared to a vacuum. This property makes it advantageous for preventing transmission line losses.

For more information concerning the characteristics of Si3N4 products, you can check the table below.

Table 1. Properties of Silicon Nitride Welding Location Pins

Benefits of Using Silicon Nitride as Welding Location Pins

Using silicon nitride as welding location pins offer many benefits, including:

• --Improved accuracy: Silicon nitride location pins can hold parts in place with greater accuracy, reducing the risk of misalignment and improving the overall quality of the weld.
• --Increased productivity: Silicon nitride location pins can withstand the high temperatures and pressures of the welding process, allowing for faster welding speeds and increased productivity.
• --Reduced downtime: These pins are highly resistant to wear and corrosion, decreasing the need for frequent replacements and minimizing downtime.
• --Increased safety: Silicon nitride location pins are electrical insulators, which reduces the risk of electrical arcing and increases safety in the welding environment.

Conclusion

Overall, silicon nitride is an excellent material for use as welding location pins due to its impressive properties, including high strength, thermal shock resistance, wear and corrosion resistance, and electrical insulation. Using silicon nitride location pins can improve accuracy, increase productivity, reduce downtime, and increase safety in the welding environment. As such, silicon nitride is a valuable material for the welding industry and other industrial applications where high performance and reliability are essential.

Advanced Ceramic Materials (ACM) provides quality silicon nitride welding pins at affordable prices. Other silicon nitride products are available as well. Send us an inquiry if you are interested.

Reference:

[1] Seidlitz, Holger & Fritzsche, Sebastian & Ambrosio, Marcello & Kloshek, Alexander. (2017). Advanced Welding Technology for Highly Stressable Multi-Material Designs with Fiber-Reinforced Plastics and Metals. Open Journal of Composite Materials. 07. 166-177. 10.4236/ojcm.2017.73010.