The temperature development in the joining area of the collision welding process is the core topic of this thesis. From literature research it can be concluded that the understanding of the process is currently insufficient to describe the mechanisms adequately and predict the welding result sufficiently accurate. In particular, barely anything is known about the temporal and spatial temperature development in the joining area.

Primarily experiments will be used to investigate the thermal effects with the help of electromagnetic pulse welding and a test rig which is specially designed for the basic research of this process. A thermographic camera, an image intensifier camera and a single-lens reflex camera are used to observe and study the actual joining process as well as the samples. The energy budget of the samples can be deduced from their temperature development. The identification of the associated physical and chemical effects is enabled by the optical images. In addition, the joint area is examined metallographically.

The observations show that temperatures of up to more than 1000°C occur in the joining area for a short time. Thus the columnar structure in the joint area can be explained as solidification structure. The development of a joint is energetically measurable. Furthermore, the temperature of the joint area and thus the temperature of the whole sample is influenced by the reactivity of the ambient medium with the sample’s material, which is an additional source of energy. This effect also becomes apparent in the spatial extent of the solidification structure inside the joint area. The characteristic process light can be explained with the help of these findings, too: It mainly consists of glowing basic material due to the plastic deformation within the joining area as well as burning and expelled basic material.