Metallurgical Strategies for the Joining of Titanium Alloys with Steels

Welding of titanium alloys with steels presents a high risk of cold cracking because of the formation of extremely brittle intermetallic phases associated with residual stress. The use of solid state and diffusion-based methods as well as a high power beam welding allow so far to achieve good tensile properties through the control of a local phase content. This review summarizes existing approaches for the creation of defect-free joints between titanium alloys and steels: direct joining without a filler material, the use of insert having full metallurgical compatibility with titanium, the use of insert compatible with stainless steel, and multilayer engineering.