Nitinol is a shape memory and superelastic alloy, respectively, and stainless steels are widely used materials in medical engineering, e.g., for implants and medical instruments. However, due to its high price and poor machinability, there is a high demand for dissimilar welding of nitinol components to stainless steel. During welding of titanium-containing alloys, like nitinol, to ferrous metals like stainless steel, intermetallic phases between titanium and iron may form. These phases are brittle and lead to rapid crack formation and/or inferior mechanical properties of the joint. In this study, superelastic nitinol wires are butt-welded with stainless steel wires by means of micro electron beam welding, providing good quality weld seams. Due to a very accurate beam alignment and fast beam deflection, the composition and the level of dilution in the weld metal can be precisely controlled, resulting in a significant reduction of fraction of intermetallic phases. The experiments show that it is possible to produce sound welds without the presence of any cracks on the surface as well as in the cross sections.

镍钛诺分别是一种形状记忆和超弹性合金，不锈钢是医学工程中广泛使用的材料，例如用于植入物和医疗器械。然而，由于其价格高和可加工性差，因此对于将镍钛合金部件与不锈钢进行异种焊接存在很高的需求。在将诸如镍钛诺的含钛合金焊接到诸如不锈钢的黑色金属上时，可能会在钛和铁之间形成金属间相。这些相是脆性的，并导致快速的裂纹形成和/或接头的较差的机械性能。在这项研究中，超弹性镍钛诺焊丝通过微电子束焊接与不锈钢焊丝对接焊接，从而提供了高质量的焊缝。由于光束对准非常准确且光束偏转很快，可以精确控制焊缝金属的成分和稀释水平，从而显着降低金属间相的分数。实验表明，在表面和横截面上不存在任何裂纹的情况下，进行良好的焊接是可能的。