Evaluation of Weldability of Titanium Alloy Ti-6Al-4V and Aluminum Alloy 6061 Produced by Electron Beam Welding

Aluminum and titanium alloys are among the most important and the most frequently used construction materials due to their physical and mechanical properties. Especially in the automotive and aerospace industry these materials allow to reduce the weight of structure which leads to reducing fuel consumption and environment pollution. These materials are often used
together which leads to problems with junction between these materials. In addition to the mechanical joints, there is an effort to produce quality welded joints. Series of works focused to welding of Al/Ti joints by conventional and nonconventional welding methods were published [1,4, 5, 6, 7]. By reduction of dimensions of molten material is possible to reduce the amount of emerging intermetallic phases and welding defects. Electron beam welding appears as suitable method for welding Al/Ti joints because it allows production of very narrow welds. The benefit is also necessity to perform electron beam welding in vacuum which is required for decrease energy losses of incident beam and simultaneously prevents reaction of molten metal with ambient atmosphere. This paper is focused to determine of appropriate parameters for electron beam
welding of heterogeneous welds of titanium alloy Ti-6Al-4V and aluminum alloy 6061. Metallographic evaluation, analysis of chemical and phase composition were performed on the test welds for purpose to describing present phases. On the selected welds was evaluated the influence
of intermetallic phases on the mechanical properties. The obtained results will be used for further experiments focused to optimize the process of electron beam welding of Al/Ti alloys.