The Role of Impact Energy in Failure of Explosive Cladding of Inconel 625 and Steel

Though explosive cladding is a viable potential solid state method for cladding different materials together, complicated behavior of materials under ballistic impacts raises the probability of interfacial shear failure. This study aims to relate the failure of explosive cladding of Inconel 625 and plain carbon steel to utilized impact energy, and consequently finding appropriate cladding parameters to prevent interfacial shear failure. The shear strength representing the adhesion strength is used as a failure criterion. According to the obtained results, by increasing the impact energy to an optimum value, the adhesion strength starts to increase. However, after an optimum value, any further increment of impact energy drops the shear strength significantly, which makes the cladding process fail. The outcomes reveal the decisive role of plastic strain localization caused by high impact energies in this failure, where local development of microcracks through adiabatic shear bands in the steel raises the chance of failure. Consequently, an attempt is made to find the optimum cladding parameters to prevent strain localization and failure of cladding.