Vacuum Compression Brazing of Martensitic Stainless Steel to Copper Alloy Using Electroplated Interlayers of Cu and Ag
摘要
Thrust chamber of liquid rocket engine consists of two shells to form the cooling passage for regenerative cooling. Inner shell consists of several channels and ribs for the coolant to flow. The inner and outer shells of Thrust Chamber are joined together by brazing. Conventionally, brazing filler material (BFM) is tack welded on the outer shell, which melts at the brazing temperature to facilitate the joining. The parts have to be rotated during brazing in Rotary Vacuum Brazing Furnace (RVBF) to avoid accumulation of BFM due to gravity. In the current study an alternate brazing technique is attempted in which coatings are provided on inner and outer shells in place of BFM, which react at a specific temperature to form in-situ braze alloy. This type of process is widely referred as Transient Liquid Phase bonding (TLP), Diffusion brazing (DB), Contact reactive brazing, etc. Fluidity of the in-situ formed braze alloy is minimal and there is a real scope of carrying out static brazing of components using coatings instead of complex RVBF. To demonstrate the static brazing technology, brazing trial was carried out on a simulator hardware. Hardware was brazed at 1000 °C using a Vacuum compression furnace and aged at 510 °C. Post brazing the hardware was subjected to burst test and hardware failed at a pressure of 878 bar.