Explosion Welding High Temperature and Wear Resistant Metal Liners into 25 mm Gun Barrels

This paper describes the explosion welding process and how it has been adapted for welding high temperature and wear resistant metal liners into 25 mm gun barrels. Explosion welding is a process that is used to join two dissimilar metals together. Explosives are used to drive two plates together at a very high velocity. The energetic collision cleans both surfaces and produces a metallurgical joint between the plates. This process has been used commercially since the mid-1960s in many industrial and defense applications. The vast majority of explosion welding has been performed in two specific geometries, welding two flat plates together and welding a tube around the outside diameter of a solid rod. Explosion welding a liner into a gun barrel is unique since the explosive is detonated inside of the liner, expanding the liner out into the gun barrel. High Energy Metals has explosion welded Stellite, Ta-5 W-2Mo, and Ta-10W on the inside of 12 '' and 36 '' long 25 mm gun barrel sections. Additionally, Ta-10W has been explosion welded on the inside diameter of 800 '' long steel forgings. The lined forgings then have been rifled and machined into complete 25 mm Bushmaster guns.