The explosion forming method and application characteristics of titanium steel composite plates

In the 1960s, the United States began to produce titanium steel composites by blasting method. In the 1980s, the research successfully developed the production of titanium steel composites using the laminated method. Blasting forming utilizes the high-pressure pulse load generated by the explosion of explosives directly acting on the cover plate, causing the cover plate to be accelerated to several hundred meters per second within a few microseconds. The cover plate starts to collide with the base plate at an angle from the detonation end, and the pressure generated by the collision exceeds the dynamic yield limit of the metal. During the collision area, the materials undergo rapid and intense plastic deformation, accompanied by intense thermal effects. The surface layer of the two metal plates at the collision point behaves like a fluid at this moment, forming two metal jets moving in opposite directions. The free jet in front of the collision point rapidly sprays into the un-welded space, washing away the surface film of the two metals to be connected, exposing a clean active surface. Under high pressure, a metallurgical connection is formed.

The advantages of the blasting method are wide adaptability for material combination. Materials with different melting points, linear expansion coefficients, or hardness can all be used to produce composite materials by blasting forming. For example, titanium and stainless steel with significantly different linear expansion coefficients can be produced as composite plates by blasting forming. By using blasting forming, two-layer or multi-layer composite materials can be produced. Its disadvantage is that the production safety requires high standards and cannot be continuously produced. It is only applicable to certain specific materials.

Today, there are various production methods for titanium steel composite plates, such as direct rolling method, casting and laminating method, blasting rolling method, and blasting method. Using these methods, various thickness and width specifications of composite plates can be produced. The base material of titanium steel composite plates is generally carbon steel, structural steel, or pressure vessel steel, while the cover material is titanium or titanium alloy. It has high strength and excellent corrosion resistance of titanium, and utilizes the characteristics of each individual material. Its application scope is very wide. Titanium steel composite plates can be processed by cold and hot processing to produce various industrial products, such as tube plates for heat exchangers, heads, reaction vessels, reactors' cylinders and containers. Titanium steel composite plates are particularly suitable for equipment that requires corrosion resistance. They have been widely used in the manufacture of various metallurgical, chemical and marine industrial equipment.