Materials & Design

Materials and Design 29 (2008) 275278 www.elsevier.com/locate/matdes

Short Communication

Investigation of interface properties and weldability of aluminum and copper plates by explosive welding method
Behcet Gulenc
*
Gazi University, Technical Education Faculty, Besevler-Ankara, Turkey Received 19 April 2006; accepted 2 November 2006 Available online 26 January 2007

Abstract In this study, weldability of aluminum sheet to copper sheet by explosive welding and the eect of explosive ratio on the joint interface have been investigated experimentally. Experimental results show that aluminium can be bonded to copper sheet by using explosive welding. The joint interface was transformed from linear to wavy appearance by increasing explosive ratio with respect to upper plate weight. Moreover, with increasing explosive ratio, the wavelength and amplitude of waviness increased. Hardness measurements indicate that the impact force leads to increase in hardness of the zone next to interface and outer surface of the plates. No separation was observed in the joint interface of explosively welded plates after three-point bending. 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Explosive welding is a welding method that welds two or more plates with each other with high pressure coming from explosion. Explosive welding, also known as explosive bonding, occurs as a result of an inclined crash between two metallic plates. In spite of the occurrence of heat during the explosion, a heat transfer is not observed from one plate to another due to the lack of time [1,2]. Since there is no thermal eect in explosive welding, it does not show the characteristics of other welding methods such as brazing, hot rolling or molten welding. There is no HAZ (heat aected zone) in this welding method, so very thin plates can be welded with this method [35]. A schematic representation of explosive welding is given in Fig. 1. Explosive welding method can be used to bond similar and dissimilar plates and also to produce ber reinforced composite materials [68]. Inclined crash removes a thin layer as a metal jet from the surfaces of bonding plates. Thickness of the removed layer is generally less than 0.05 mm. With removing out
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the layer as a metal jet, the surfaces of the bonding plates are cleaned [9,10]. The cleaned metal surfaces are pressed under high pressure because of explosion. On closing the atoms of two materials the total energy reduces consequently and attracting or bonding force occurs. As a result, a bonding in atomic level is made between two materials [1113]. Like other welding methods, explosive welding method has some welding parameters that aect the welding quality. In this study, the eect of explosive ratio which is one of the major parameters on interface quality is widely investigated by using dierent explosive ratios. Aluminum and copper plates, which are not possible to weld with other traditional welding methods, were welded for the purposed aim.
2. Materials and methods
Aluminum, which has 200 200 2 mm dimensions and 45 HV hardness and copper, which has 200 200 2 mm dimensions, 113 HV hardness and purity of 99.98%, plates were explosively welded using parallel geometry for this investigation. The chemical composition of welded aluminum is given in Table 1. An explosive anfo containing 6% fuel oil and detonator were used for the explosion. Aluminum was placed as the upper part and explosive ratio was determined proportional with the weight of aluminum sheet.

Tel.: +90 312 212 68 20; fax: +90 312 212 00 59. E-mail address: behcetg@gazi.edu.tr

0261-3069/$ - see front matter 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.matdes.2006.11.001

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B. Gulenc / Materials and Design 29 (2008) 275278

3. Results and discussion The sample, bonded with 260 g explosive powder and 1.2 explosive ratio, was not bonded strong enough and detached easily by hand. Because of an insucient amount of the explosive, the explosion energy was not enough to accelerate the upper plate for welding with lower plate; then, consequently, sucient pressure cannot be produced. Thus a good bonding was not proven. Crash speed of the upper plate with this explosive ratio was calculated to be 985 m/s. Previous studies [1416] indicated that crash speeds less than 1000 m/s gave insucient bonding strength. Other experiments with sucient explosive ratios gave good bonding strengths. Good results obtained from successful experiments are discussed below. 4. Microstructure
Mg 0.0036 Al 99.12

Fig. 1. Schematic view of explosive welding.

Table 1 Chemical composition of aluminum sheet Element Si % Weight 0.163 Mn 0.0111

The speed of the upper layer was determined with an equation which is improved by Gurney. This equation is termed as Gurney equation. According to this equation, each explosive has a unique explosion energy. This unique energy is called Gurney energy [2,14]. In the equation, Vp is the speed of the upper plate, 2E is Gurney energy, m is the weight of the upper plate and c is the weight of the explosive. 3 2 V p2 2E 15 m 4 m c c2 1

The eect of increasing explosive ratio on bonding interface waviness is shown in Fig. 2. As it is seen from the microstructural pictures, when 1.5 explosive ratio (R) was used bonding interface became almost smooth. Depending upon the density of the bonding couples, bonding interfaces of the welding couples tend to become wavy with increasing

Bonding speed of upper plate to lower plate was calculated using Gurney equation. As Gurney energy value, energy value of Anfo, which was determined by Gurney, was taken. Explosive ratios and speed of the upper plate are given in Table 2. Welding is carried out on a steel substrate, which has dimensions of 1500 mm 1500 mm 100 mm, between bonding plates, a distance equal to the upper plates thickness was adjusted. A plastic layer of 5 mm thickness was placed between the substrate and the lower layer to prevent the plates from acoustic damage and bounding. For examining the microstructure of wavy state of interface, bonded plates were prepared by cutting parallel to the explosion direction. The samples were prepared with the standard metallographic route and etched in Viella etchant. Vickers hardness values were measured under one kg weight from dierent regions of bonding interface to see the eect of deformation. Bending tests were carried out to characterize the dierent processing conditions in bonding interface.

Table 2 Explosive ratio, explosive quantity and impact speed of upper plate Sample Weight of upper plate (g) (m) 216 216 216 216 216 Explosive ratio (R) 1.2 1.5 2 2.5 3 Amount of explosive (g) (c) = (m R) 260 324 432 540 648 Speed of upper plate (m/s) (Vp) 985 1124 1305 1452 1570

1 2 3 4 5

Fig. 2. The interface view of bonded samples.

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explosive ratio. Shapes and dimensions of the waviness of interface also changed. On close examination of picture d in Fig. 2, sample 5, which has the highest ratio of explosive, shape and dimension of the waviness of interface, can be seen clearly. While a smooth or almost smooth interface formed with a low explosive ratio, a wavelength of 450 lm and an amplitude of waviness of 60 lm formed with increasing explosive ratio. Some previous research [1417] also showed that the more the explosive ratio is, the more the waviness bonding interface would be. Very high explosive ratio led to excessive waviness bonding interface and also the formation of intermetallics in steelsteel bonding [15]. When the interface was examined from microstructural pictures, it will be seen that a mechanical bonding starts because of waviness interface with increasing explosive ratio. With increasing waviness of bonding interface, the mechanical properties of bonded samples were improved. Crash speed of upper plate increased to 1570 m/s from 985 m/s with the increase of explosive. In general, crash speed and crash pressure increase with increasing explosive ratio. The amount of deformation in interface and amplitude and wavelength of interface increases with increasing crash pressure. Consequently, a wavier interface occurred with increasing explosive ratio. 5. Hardness Hardness values from both sides of interface of welded AlCu couples, which are welded with dierent explosive ratio, were measured. Measurement points are 200, 1000, and 1800 lm from bonding interface in both sides. Since sample 1 is not bonded, measurement was not taken from this sample. The hardness variation in both sides of bonding interface of all samples is shown in Fig. 3. As it is seen from Fig. 3 too, the hardness of the bonded plates increased in the inner and outer sides with increasing explosive ratio because of increasing amount of deformation. While the hardness value of Al plate was 45 HV in advance, a distance of 200 lm was measured to be 53 HV, 1800 lm was measured to be 54 HV for the sample welded with explosive ratio of 1.5. Since the 1000 lm dis-

tance from the bonding surface is the middle of the aluminum plate, hardness of the welded aluminum showed very little change i.e., 47 HV from 45 HV. The hardness of the nearest region and near to welded interface of the sample, which is welded with the highest ratio of explosive, reached 66 HV, 65 HV, respectively. The hardness variation of Copper plate was almost the same as that of aluminum. In copper plate, while hardness value of the nearest region to the bonding interface was 133 HV, the hardness value of the outer region was measured as 132 HV from the sample welded with the highest explosive ratio of 3. From the middle of the welded aluminum plate, hardness value was measured to be 118 HV which is almost the same as that of unwelded copper plate. The reason for the increase of hardness of interface area is the cold deformation due to the high speed crash of exploded plates. The reason for the increase of hardness of outer faces is high speed crash of lower plate with substrate and immediate shock of the upper plate from explosion. The immediate shock caused increases the hardness of the outer surface of bonding plates and this increase becomes more proportional with the increasing explosive ratio. The speed of crash rises with increasing explosive ratio and consequently hardness of bonding plates increases. Deformation during the crash of bonding plates is limited with a very narrow thickness close to the surface. So the hardness of the middle area remains almost unchanged. Some researchers [6,1416] also revealed that the hardness of bonding surfaces and outer surfaces of bonding plates may increase because of deformation. 6. Bending Three point bending test was applied to the explosively welded samples to check the strength of bonding of samples which are used in dierent conditions. Bending tests were carried out in accordance with ASTM A 263-94a. The samples were bended up to 180. The samples were bended in both ways which are Aluminum inside and Copper inside. A photograph of the bended samples are shown in Fig. 4. After bending up to 180, the samples welded with dierent explosive ratio were not separated, torn or cracked on the deformed surfaces. After the performance
Aluminum Copper

150 130
Hardness (HV1)

R= 1.5

R= 2

R= 2.5

R= 3

Original Material

Bonding Interface

110 90 70 50
Aluminum

Copper

30
1800 1000 200 0 200 1000 1800 Distance of bonding interface (m)

Fig. 3. Hardness variation of bonded samples.

Fig. 4. Bended samples.

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B. Gulenc / Materials and Design 29 (2008) 275278 [5] Gupta RC, Kainth GS. Swinging wake mechanism for interface wave generation in explosive welding of metals. T ASME 1990;57: 51421. [6] Balasubramanian V, Rathinasabapathi M, Raghukandan K. Modelling of process parameters in explosive cladding of mildsteel and aluminium. J Mater Process Technol 1997;63(13):838. [7] Mamalis AG, Szalay A, Vaxevanidis NM, Pantelis DI. Macrocopic and microscpic phenomena of nickel/titanium shape-memoy bimetalic strips fabricated by explosive cladding and rolling. Mater Sci Eng A 1994;188:26775. [8] Kahraman N, Gu B. Investigaton of microstructure ond corro lenc sion behaviour of explosively bonded titanium and copper plates. J Polytech 2004;7(1):4552. Faculty of Technical Education, Gazi University. [9] Banker JG, Edvard GR. Explosion welding. ASM Handbook, vol. 6, 1993, p. 303305. [10] Yang Y, Xinming Z, Zhenghua L, Qingyun L. Adiabatic shear band on the titanium side in the Ti/Mild steel explosive cladding interface. Acta Mater 1996;44(2):5615. [11] Onaran K, Erman B. Structure and properties of materials, vol. 1. Turkey: ITU; 1993. [12] James FK, Hay DR. A mechanizm of explosive bonding. Metall Trans 1971;2:19538. [13] Kahraman N. Joint of titanium plates to dierent metals by explosive welding method and investigation of their interface properties. Ph.D. thesis, Gazi University, Ankara-Turkey, 2003. [14] Durgutlu A. Bonding of copper and stainless steel by using explosion welding and investigation of mechanical-microstructural properties of interface. Ph.D. thesis, Gazi University, AnkaraTurkey, 2003. [15] Acarer M. Eects of explosive welding parameters, explosive loading, stand-o distance and anvil, on steel/steel bonding quality. Ph.D. thesis, Sakarya University, Sakarya, Turkey, 2001. [16] Durgutlu A, Gu B. Weldability of stainless steel to copper plates lenc by explosive welding and the eect of explosive ratio on the joint interface. J Polytech 2002;5(3):2437. Faculty of Technical Education, Gazi University. [17] Kahraman N, Gu B, Fndk F. Joining of titanium/stainless steel lenc by explosive welding and eect on interface. J Mater Process Technol 2005;169:12733.

of bending test, at least two of three samples should not be separated, not more than 50% [14]. In our case, none of our samples separated after the bending test was performed. That means explosively welded samples can be deformed or shaped. The usage of explosively welded samples in different areas was proven [17]. 7. Conclusion 1. AlCu plates can be welded explosively under appropriate weld parameters. 2. Bonding interface of explosively bonded samples was formed in wavy shape due to the inclined crash. 3. Grains were elongated parallel to explosive direction in interface area due to plastic deformation during explosion. 4. Wavelength and amplitude of length increases with increasing explosive ratio. 5. The hardness of the interface area increases with increasing explosive ratio. 6. The samples were bent through to 180 and no separation, tearing or crack was observed. References
[1] Welding handbook, explosion welding. AWS, A.B.D., vol. 3, 1980, p. 26478. [2] Patterson RA. Fundamentals of explosion welding. ASM Handbook, UK, vol. 6, 1993, p. 1604. [3] Kleven S. Ultrasonic inspection of explosion welded titanium clad plate. Mater Eval 1996:55760. [4] Cowan GR, Bergmann OR, Holtzman AH. Mechanism of bond zone wave formation in explosive-clad metals. Metall Trans 1971;2: 314555.