Laser processing of titanium alloys to increase the strength of adhesive joint with CFRP

Titanium alloys are hard-to-bond materials due to the fact that a thin oxide film is always present on their surface, which prevents the formation of interatomic and intermolecular bonds between the adhesive and the substrate. In the load-bearing structures of spacecraft (SC), an adhesive bond between a titanium alloy and a composite material is often used. But the strength of such knots is relatively small compared to the mechanical connection. The purpose of this work is to increase the strength of the adhesive joint, due to laser processing of the working surface of the titanium alloy for gluing. Texturing of the surface of the titanium alloy OT-4 was carried out on an ytterbium pulsed fiber laser in 4 processing modes. The treated surface was glued with KMU-4 carbon fiber over an area of 300 mm2 using a VK-9 three-component adhesive. The adhesive strength test was carried out on a Eurotest T-50 tensile tester. The test showed that the strength of the laser-treated samples increased by more than 80% relative to the average value of mechanical grinding. The highest value of shear strength was shown by samples with laser processing No. 1 and No. 3. This is due to the greatest increase in the area of bonding of the surface, as well as the mechanical locking of the adhesive in the microrelief of the structure. The increase in shear strength caused by laser surface treatment is a mixed effect of increasing surface area, mechanically locking the adhesive, and changing the surface chemistry. The chemical composition of the surface structure under the influence of laser scanning is gradually transformed from Ti and Ti2O3 to crystalline TiO2. The nature of the destruction of the adhesive joint in the samples with laser processing is predominantly cohesive, but samples with the destruction of the carbon fiber material were also observed, that is, the shear stress in the composite material exceeded the adhesive strength. The effect of pretreatment of the composite material on the strength of the adhesive joint was not considered in this work.