Chapter 6 - Explosive welding

Explosive welding is a solid-state welding process of great potential for joining dissimilar material combinations with extremely different physical properties such as aluminum to copper, aluminum to carbon steel and aluminum to stainless steel. This chapter presents an overview of the explosive welding process and the most recent developments concerning the welding of these three combinations. It discusses the achievement of good quality explosive welds of these combinations as well as the factors affecting their weldability. The interface of explosive welds is analyzed, pointing out the most favorable interfacial morphology and microstructure, as well as the tools to predict them. Through an analysis of the most recent work addressing the combinations studied, topics on metallurgy, welding process development and microstructure are presented.