Influence of the angle between adherends on ultrasonic welding of thermoplastic composites

Research on ultrasonic welding of composites has focused mostly on studying parameters that are inputs for the process or material-related parameters, but almost no attention has been given on the effect of manufacturing tolerances. In this work, we investigated how an angle between adherends impacts the welding process and the weld quality. By increasing the angle between top and bottom adherends, it was found that the duration of the process increased while the power consumed, the weld uniformity and the weld strength decreased. However, by increasing the clamping distance, which increased the compliance of the adherends and hence their ability to deform under the applied welding force, the effect of the misalignment on both the welding process and weld quality could be substantially reduced.