A New Strategy for Preparing Advanced Aluminum/Steel Joint Using Low-Temperature Explosive Welding Technology

Obtaining a high-quality Al/Fe joint remains a challenging task, due to formation of the various defects associated with melting phenomenon. Herein, a new strategy, lowering of initial temperature of the welded plates, is proposed to suppress the undesirable melting zone. Contrast experiments are conducted at low temperature (-50 & DEG;C) and room temperature (25 & DEG;C), respectively, and the microstructures and mechanical properties of the achieved joints are carefully investigated. It is found that this strategy is an effective way to improve the quality of Al/Fe joint, where the melting-related defects are significantly reduced, and the bonding strength is increased by 18% when compared to the traditional method. In addition, the lowering of initial temperature enables to preserve the original properties of the parent metals by mitigating the impact-induced grain structure evolution. This phenomenon is first demonstrated in this work and can be employed as a processing strategy to develop an advanced Al/Fe joint.