Aluminum and aluminum alloy wire can be used as filler material for argon arc welding and oxyacetylene gas welding of aluminum alloy. ER4043 and ER5356 are the most commonly used aluminum alloy wire grades, which specified in the requirements of AWS A5.10/AWS A5.10M.

Aluminum-magnesium alloy 5356 is a kind of aluminum alloy filler metal containing 5%Mn, which has good anti-seawater corrosion performance. It can be generally used in MIG or TIG welding of base material 5050, 5052, 5083, 5356, 5454 and 5456. It appears white after anodizing and close to the color of the parent material.

Welding wire 5356 is suitable for welding or surfacing 5 % Mn cast and forging aluminum alloy. It offers.high strength(Tensile strength up to 290MPa), good formability and corrosion resistance, can be used in sports equipment, locomotive cars, chemical pressure vessels, military production, shipbuilding, aviation and other industries.

Aluminum-silicon alloy wire 4043 is the aluminum filler metal containing 5%Si and can be used for welding 3003, 3004, 5052, 6061, 6063 and casting metals 355, 356 and 214. The melting temperature of ER4043 ranges from 1065 to 1170F and the color of the weld metal after anodizing is grey and white, which is different from the base metal.

The weld metal of 4043 has excellent thermal cracking resistance and certain mechanical properties. The tensile strength is lower than welding wire 5356, that is 186MPa. The weld is easy to produce brittle Mg2Si, which reduces the plasticity and corrosion resistance of the joint.

Welding wire 4043 is commonly used as filling material for TIG arc welding and oxyacetylene gas welding of aluminum alloy workpiece except for aluminum magnesium alloy, especially suitable for heat treatment to strengthen aluminum alloy which is easy to produce heat crack.

In general, the choice of aluminum and aluminum alloy wire is mainly based on the type of base material, joint crack resistance, mechanical properties and corrosion resistance, etc. comprehensive consideration, we suggest to choose the same or similar grade of the base material chemical composition of welding wire to obtain good corrosion resistance. For the aluminum alloy strengthened by heat treatment with high welding hot cracking tendency, the cracking resistance should be considered, and the composition of welding wire may be very different from that of aluminum alloy base material.