>new welding technique that consumes 80 percent less energy than a common welding technique, yet creates bonds that are 50 percent stronger. I don't care at al

>new welding technique that consumes 80 percent less energy than a common welding technique, yet creates bonds that are 50 percent stronger. I don't care at all about the energy required. It's peanuts anyhow compared to making steel. You can use less steel with better welds, because you don't need to compensate so much. "50% stronger than previous welding" doesn't really mean anything. "80% strength of the base metal" would be really cool. >Within microseconds (millionths of a second), the foil vaporizes, and a burst of hot gas pushes two pieces of metal together at speeds approaching thousands of miles per hour. Explosion welding isn't exactly new. They seem to have developed more accurate(?) or less energy incentive(?) way to explosion weld. The article doesn't say. And how loud is this? >The technique is powerful enough to shape metal parts at the same time it welds them together Probably this is disadvantage. Likely they need to make counter recess for the welds, and afterwards smooth things out with something. This technology seems very cool. But the article is really bad. Anyhow, it's so interesting that I'd actually welcome OP to do this again. Could I get the same results with very powerful laser peening equipment?