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When Ukrainian sculptor Serhii Minakov set out to create ‘Into the Future’ – a towering steel artwork featuring a young man and woman inside a globe – he encountered a problem familiar to anyone who has tried to weld complex sculptures: how to make a strong, clean joint when access is possible from only one side.
Traditional arc welding works like a charm when a joint can be reached from both sides and any excess metal ground away. Yet for the non-standard junctions typical of sculptural steelwork, that approach is impossible. Conventional brazing – using a lower-melting-point filler metal to bond parts without fully melting them – requires a precise, narrow gap between surfaces, something almost impossible to guarantee across the many angles found in artwork.
At present, Dr Yevgenia Chvertko of the Department of Welding Technology at Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute (KPI) and her colleagues of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine have developed a technique that blends welding and brazing – with results striking both aesthetically and mechanically.
The team’s method uses a tungsten inert gas arc to heat the steel rod ends until small pools of molten metal form. A copper-silicon filler wire is then introduced into those pools. The liquid solder mixes with the molten steel, flows into the gap, and crystallises into a joint that is mechanically robust and visually neat, requiring minimal finishing.
Tests showed that joints made using the new technique withstood tensile forces of up to 34.3 kilonewtons – around 23% stronger than those produced by applying conventional methods. The mixing of liquid steel and bronze solder creates a composite structure reinforced by steel fibres, accounting for much of the strength gain.
The technology has already proven itself in practice. Minakov’s completed sculpture was produced entirely using the new method and selected for the International Institute of Welding’s 2023 Digital Collection Welded Art Photographic Exhibition. For Yevgenia Chvertko and her colleagues, art and engineering have seldom been so seamlessly joined.
Watch a two-minute video here:
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