AccScience Publishing / ESAM / Volume 1 / Issue 4 / DOI: 10.36922/ESAM025430030
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ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE

Effect of electroshock treatment on microstructure evolution of Ti-6Al-4V/Cu-Cr-Zr interface fabricated by laser melting deposition

Shiqiang Xie1,2 ,  Changlin Huang1,2 ,  Jiawei Gong1,2 ,  Pei Wang1,2 ,  Yan Wen1,2* ,  Lechun Xie1,2*
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1 State Key Laboratory of Light Superalloys, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China
2 Hubei Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Automotive Components, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China
ESAM 2025, 1(4), 025430030 https://doi.org/10.36922/ESAM025430030
Received: 21 October 2025 | Revised: 11 November 2025 | Accepted: 12 November 2025 | Published online: 28 November 2025
© 2025 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
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Abstract

This study aims to examine the effect of electroshock treatment (EST) on Ti-6Al-4V/Cu-Cr-Zr manufactured by laser melting deposition and explore the microstructure and mechanical properties to investigate the microstructure evolution of copper-based rail composite materials under high-energy-density currents. The results indicated that EST could promote atomic diffusion, enabling rapid preferential growth of TiCu in the metallurgical bonding zone. An increase of the current density promoted the nucleation of the primary Ti2Cu phase induced by the thermal effect of EST, which led to Cu solute enrichment and composition undercooling. Moreover, EST significantly improved nucleation rate and grain boundary migration. The average β grain size of the EST-1 sample increased from 2.83 μm to 3.62 μm, approximately, while the typical basic texture of EST-1 was enhanced. In EST-1, the shear strength of Ti-6Al-4V/Cu-Cr-Zr was 132 MPa, which was 65% higher than that of the original Ti-6Al-4V/Cu-Cr-Zr composite. The improvement in shear strength can be attributed to intergranular nano-precipitation and the improved wettability of Ti-6Al-4V/Cu-Cr-Zr. This work provides valuable insights into the preparation of high-value, high-performance Cu-based composites.

Graphical abstract
Keywords
Electroshock treatment
Ti-6Al-4V/Cu-Cr-Zr interface
Microstructure evolution
Mechanical properties
Funding
This work was financially supported by the Major Research Plan of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 92266102), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 52271135, No. 52433026, No. 52571177), the Key Laboratory of Green Fabrication and Surface Technology of Advanced Metal Materials (GFST2024KF05), and the Innovative Research Group Project of Hubei Provincial Natural Science Foundation (Grant No. 2025AFA014).
Conflict of interest
The authors declare they have no competing interests.
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Engineering Science in Additive Manufacturing, Electronic ISSN: 3082-849X Published by AccScience Publishing
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