Aluminum-silicon carbide composite welding project

Late-1980s consulting inquiry Tom declined. He refused to electron-beam-weld Al-SiC composites because the aluminum carbide formed in the weld reacts with humidity and cracks. The company took the work to Ohio State; the doctoral student who did it later agreed it was a lousy project. Used to teach the trade-off principle in composite design.

Back in the late 80s, when aluminum silicon carbide composites became much less expensive to produce, a company came to me and said, we want you to take our aluminum silicon carbide composites and electron beam weld them. I said nope, not going to do it. I said, if you want to do that, you can go to Ohio State University, they've got a welding engineering department, they'll be happy to take your money. They said, why not? I said, because when you melt silicon carbide in the presence of aluminum in a fusion weld, you're going to form aluminum carbide, and aluminum carbide reacts with the humidity in the air and causes cracking. They said, but we want MIT to do this. I said, fine, you can find someone else at MIT, I wouldn't take your money for this job. It's a stupid project — I didn't say that to them, but I've said it since. Well, they went to Ohio State, and one guy who didn't get admitted to MIT to do his work on welding did that work at Ohio State, and I know him now. We talk about it every now and then. He thought it was a lousy project when he finally learned about it, and he will admit it was a stupid project, because you give up certain things.