THE FORMATION OF TiAl3 DURING HEAT TREATMENT IN EXPLOSIVELY WELDED Ti-Al MULTILAYERS

Metallic-intermetallic laminate (MIL) composites are promising materials for structural applications especially in the aerospace industry. One of the interesting laminate composites is the Ti-TiAl3 multilayer. In this work, commercially pure sheets of aluminum and titanium with almost equal thickness of around 0.5 mm were explosively joined. The achieved multilayers were annealed at 630 ? in different times so that an intermetallic layer was formed at the Ti/Al interface. The resulting microstructure was studied by optical and scanning electron microscopy and Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS). TiAl3 was the only intermetallic phase that was observed in all annealing times. The kinetics of the formation of TiAl3 was investigated and compared to previous research studies performed on Ti-Al multilayers which were fabricated using methods other than explosive welding.