Experimental and numerical investigations of interface properties of Ti6Al4V/CP-Ti/Copper composite plate prepared by explosive welding

Abstract Explosive welding technique is widely used in many industries. This technique is useful to weld different kinds of metal alloys that are not easily welded by any other welding methods. Interlayer plays an important role to improve the welding quality and control energy loss during the collision process. In this paper, the Ti6Al4V plate was welded with a copper plate in the presence of a commercially pure titanium interlayer. Microstructure details of welded composite plate were observed through optical and scanning electron microscope. Interlayer-base plate interface morphology showed a wavy structure with solid melted regions inside the vortices. Moreover, the energy dispersive spectroscopy analysis in the interlayer-base interface reveals that there are some identified regions of different kinds of chemical equilibrium phases of Cu–Ti, i.e. CuTi, Cu2Ti, CuTi2, Cu4Ti, etc. To study the mechanical properties of composite plates, mechanical tests were conducted, including the tensile test, bending test, shear test and Vickers hardness test. Numerical simulation of explosive welding process was performed with coupled Smooth Particle Hydrodynamic method, Euler and Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian method. The multi-physics process of explosive welding, including detonation, jetting and interface morphology, was observed with simulation. Moreover, simulated plastic strain, temperature and pressure profiles were analysed to understand the welding conditions. Simulated results show that the interlayer base plate interface was created due to the high plastic deformation and localized melting of the parent plates. At the collision point, both alloys behave like fluids, resulting in the formation of a wavy morphology with vortices, which is in good agreement with the experimental results.