Experimental investigation of Ti–6Al–4V titanium alloy and 304L stainless steel friction welded with copper interlayer

The basic principle of friction welding is intermetallic bonding at the stage of super plasticity attained with self-generating heat due to friction and finishing at upset pressure. Now the dissimilar metal joints are especially popular in defense, aerospace, automobile, bio-medical, refinery and nuclear engineerings. In friction welding, some special alloys with dual phase are not joined successfully due to poor bonding strength. The alloy surfaces after bonding also have metallurgical changes in the line of interfacing. The reported research work in this area is scanty. Although the sound weld zone of direct bonding between Ti–6Al–4V and SS304L was obtained though many trials, the joint was not successful. In this paper, the friction welding characteristics between Ti–6Al–4V and SS304L into which pure oxygen free copper (OFC) was introduced as interlayer were investigated. Box–Behnken design was used to minimize the number of experiments to be performed. The weld joint was analyzed for its mechanical strength. The highest tensile strength between Ti–6Al–4V and SS304L between which pure copper was used as insert metal was acquired. Micro-structural analysis and elemental analysis were carried out by EDS, and the formation of intermetallic compound at the interface was identified by XRD analysis.