Numerical and experimental studies on the explosive welding of plates with different initial strength

In this paper, the effect of initial tensile strength on the explosive welding interface morphology and welding quality was studied. The plates with different initial tensile strength were fabricated via the explosive welding method under the same parameters. Microstructure and hardness at the interface were obtained. According to the characterization, the results demonstrated the morphology of the cross sections is greatly influenced by the strength of the plates. Microhardness analysis confirms that the explosive joining section has work hardening and thermal softening effect occurred. Furthermore, the explosive welding process was numerically simulated by AUTODYN and the temperature distribution of the interfaces was obtained, and it reveals that the strength is negligible and the interface can only be considered as incompressible flow when the pressure ratio σ is large enough. Otherwise, the strength of the plates cannot be neglected.