Wettability, Diffusion Behaviors, and Modeling of Ni Nanoparticles and Nanowires in Brazing Inconel 718

Ni nanoparticles (NPs) and nanowires (NWs) are compared as brazing filler metals for joining Inconel 718. NWs significantly enhance the strength of brazed joints compared to NP joints (270 MPa). Herein, joints formed with a pure NW pellet and a NW-NP mixed pellet yield average lap shear bonding strengths of 319.2 and 370 MPa, respectively. The experiment displays that the contact angle in brazing with NPs is higher than that with NWs. A modified Hart's equation is also proposed for predicting the effective interdiffusion coefficients of nanomaterials that account for surface diffusion in addition to lattice and grain boundary diffusion. The diffusion coefficients calculated by the modified Hart's equation are consistent with the values determined by Sauer-Friese analysis for NPs, but for NWs, the diffusion coefficients determined by Sauer-Friese are mainly controlled by grain boundary diffusion, significantly higher than those predicted by the modified Hart's equation due to size-dependent transient liquid phase diffusion. This explains the enhanced brazing strength with NW fillers.