Today’s power-hungry electronic devices run faster than ever, and this increased processing speed generates heat–a lot of it–requiring innovative solutions for heat dissipation in electronic components and LEDs. One of these solutions is producing large extruded aluminum heat sinks, but the cost of extruded aluminum heat sinks larger than 20 inches in diameter is very costly. In fact, there are not many extrusion presses in the world that handle the production of aluminum heat sinks that big, but we have come up with a solution for this: Aluminum Friction Stir Welding.
What is Aluminum Friction Stir Welding?
Aluminum Friction Stir Welding is a method of welding that uses a rotating mechanical tool to join two aluminum surfaces together, fusing them seamlessly. This method has been in use for welding aluminum since the mid 1990’s and is superior to fuse welding—the method where you melt the two pieces of aluminum together resulting in an imperfect, weaker bond than that created through friction stir welding.
Benefits of Aluminum Friction Stir Welding Services from Getec
Aluminum fiction stir welding has the following benefits:
- Superior Joints – Friction stir welding produces joints that are flush with the surface and sealed, making them non-porous and impermeable.
- Strong Bonds –Creates bonds much stronger than those that use thermal epoxy or require grooves to be carved into the plate for additional aluminum coil used to bond fins to plates or two plates together via the fuse welding process.
- Allows Heat Sink Designs with High Aspect Ratios – Sometimes greater than 40:1.
- Easily Repeatable Heat Sink Designs – Because of the quality and consistency of the extruded heat sinks, the stir welding process is easy to repeat, keeping the quality of the joined heat sinks consistent and predictable.
- Large Heat Sink Designs at a Fraction of the Cost– For example, a 36-inch extruded heat sink press is hard to find, and if you did, you’d need to spend $40 to $90K just for tooling, and then expect a 10 to 20 ton minimum run, making a large extruded heat sink cost beyond the budget for most companies. However, using aluminum friction stir welding to combine three 12-inch heat sinks together to create one seamless 36” heat sink is far less expensive and has comparable performance to an extruded heat sink of that same size.
- Premium Aluminum Billet – Getec uses higher quality aluminum billet than the competition, and higher quality aluminum billet creates higher quality stir welded thermal management solutions. This allows the production of large heat sink designs with better efficiency, higher aspect ratios, and a superior quality result.
Our aluminum friction stir welding services can be delivered for any of our premium aluminum extrusion heat sink profiles:
Get the Best Stir Welded Heat Sink Designs from Getec Industries
The combination of our state-of-the-art friction stir welding technology, premium aluminum billet, and years of heat sink design knowledge provides some of the best thermal management solutions available in the market today. Give us a call at 888-000-8499, contact us online, call us at send us an email at sales@getecna.com to speak to a heat sink design expert today.
