Microstructural behavior on weld fusion zone of Al-Ti and Ti-Al dissimilar lap welding using single-mode fiber laser

Titanium (Ti) metal and its alloys are desirable materials for ship hulls and other ocean structures because of their high strength, corrosion-resistance and light weight properties. And light weight and corrosion-resistant aluminum (Al) is the ideal metal for shipbuilding. The joining of Ti and Al dissimilar metals is one of the effective methode to reduce weight of the structures. Ti and Al have great differences in materials properties, and intermetallic compounds such as $Ti_3Al$, TiAl, $TiAl_3$ are easily formed at the contacting surface between Ti and Al. Thus, dissimilar welding and joining of Ti and Al are considered to be very difficult. However, it was clarified that ultra-high speed welding could suppress the formation of intermetallic compounds in the previous study. Results of tensile shear strength increases with an increase in the welding speed, and therefore extremely high welding speed (50 m/min) is good to dissimilar weldability for Ti and Al. In this study, therefore, full penetration dissimilar lap welding of Ti (upper) - Al (lower) and Al (upper) - Ti (lower) with single-mode fiber laser was tried at ultra-high welding speed, and the microstructure of the interface zones in the dissimilar Al and Ti weld beads was investigated.