Investigation of strengthening mechanism of commercially pure titanium joints fabricated by autogenously laser beam welding and laser-MIG hybrid welding processes

In this study, in order to achieve a better understanding of the strengthening mechanism in the commercially pure (CP) Ti welds, autogenously laser beam and laser-MIG hybrid welding of 4.2mm thick CP-Ti plates were performed and the correlation between microstructure, texture distribution and the mechanical properties were systematically investigated. Microstructural coarsening and increase in microhardness were observed in the HAZ and WZ. The tensile test results suggested the base metal was the weak point of the joint for both welding conditions. The EBSD observations confirmed that a large number of twin grains occurred in the HAZ and WZ of both welded joints, while a higher concentration of these twin grains were found in the laser-MIG hybrid joints. High concentration of the twin grain boundaries can act as barrier to stop dislocation slip during deformation and therefore contribute to the strengthening of the welds. The existence of very small twin grains and acicular phase in HAZ and WZ would equivalently reduce the averaged grain size and therefore induce an increase in strength based on Hall-Petch's law. In addition, the averaged Schmid factor of BM is higher than that of the WZ and HAZ in both welding joints suggesting that the grain boundary sliding will take place preferably in BM during deformation so that the necking and fracture occurred in base metal during tensile tests of both welding joint specimens.