The electric vehicle revolution is posing numerous assembly challenges for engineers, such as how to join dissimilar metals and how to attach large terminals onto thick cables. Ironically, a century-old technology, magnetic pulse welding (MPW), could be the answer to these problems.
A noncontact process, MPW uses electromagnetic pressure to accelerate one metal part to produce an impact against another metal part. The atomic bond created by this process is similar to the bond created by explosion welding. The technique can be used to join both similar and dissimilar metals.