Low-temperature thermoplastic welding of metallic glass ribbons for in-space manufacturing

In-space manufacturing is an emerging and promising research field in space industry, which benefits the development of space explorations. Owing to the microgravity, high vacuum and complexity of the space environment, a special manufacturing strategy for alloys is highly demanded for the in-space manufacturing. Herein, a low-temperature thermoplastic metallic welding method was proposed and employed for La-based metallic glass ribbons. With the sandwiched structures of La- and Zr-based ribbons, the welded samples exhibit a competitive fracture strength and an increased tensile strain than those of the welded la-based samples due to the second phase strengthening. This suggests that metallic glass is an ideal material candidate for in-space manufacturing, and can be well manufactured at a nonmelting state with good mechanical performances. In addition, the thermoplastic manufacturing method can also feature a moderate processing time window. In general, this work presents the promising potential of low-temperature thermoplastic welding strategy for in-space manufacturing of metallic materials.