Explosive Welding and Cladding

Abstract

Explosive welding or cladding is usually performed on relative thick plates by means of a large scale parallel plate set‐up. At TNO‐PML several of the explosive welding configurations that were developed mainly in the nineteen sixties and seventies are being investigated for their potential use in modern industrial applications. Configurations for explosive cladding of curved surfaces such as tubes and rods are also being examined. This can be used to make special bimetallic heat exchanger tubes, or for the protection of electrodes that are used in electrolysis. Explosive line and seam welding are important bonding techniques that allow the welding of both similar and dissimilar metal plates and sheets. Here, bonding occurs over a small overlapping fraction of the two surfaces. This requires only a small amount of explosive (e.g. 5 g/m for line welds in thin ductile sheets). Explosive foil cladding can be used as an alternative coating technique. Plates that are clad with a foil on one or both sides were fabricated in one process step. They can be further machined or deformed using conventional techniques, due to the ductility of the bond and clad material.