To assess the ability of a material to create filler metal flow and fill the brazing joint areas during the brazing process, we adapted a method which is called aluminum Flow Factor test. The target is to take benefit of this test in order to reach an optimum level of heat exchanger performance from project development steps.
This paper studies similar aluminum clad material compositions coming from different suppliers. After brazing process, significant differences were noticed in the filler metal flow results.
This study highlighted the impact of brazing peak temperature to create more or less flow of filler metal. The Flow Factor is promoted by the increase of brazing peak temperature. It also showed that regardless the material gage, at a low peak temperature of 591°C, Flow Factor are quite similar around 0,18.
Even if the silicon particle size was not especially studied, compared to others papers, this study didn't show a main impact on Flow Factor results compared to other factors.