Ta/TA6V heterogeneous welding. Study of the formation and the metallurgical properties of the melted zones

The welding laboratory of the department of manufacturing and nuclear technologies is in charge to assemble prototype objects which appeal to a lot of materials as for instance titanium or tantalum. The autogenous weldability of these two materials is relatively well known nowadays, by laser beam or electrons beam. On the other hand, the heterogeneous welding is most difficult on account of the important differences of the thermophysical and metallurgical properties of the two involved materials. This work deals more particularly with the Nd:YAG laser welding of tantalum with the titanium alloy TA6V. Two modes of energy contribution are considered: impulsional and continuous. The aim of this work is to finely characterized, in a metallurgical point of view, the melted zones in order to control their composition (constitution and distribution of the phases in presence, identification of the eventual defects), as well as the reactional processes occurring in the liquid bath during and after the interaction of the laser beam with the matter. Thus, a first study has been carried out at the macroscopic scale in order to obtain global views of the melted zones. The magnification is then strongly increased for analyzing the weldings at the microstructure scale. (O.M.)