Vacuum hot-rolled bonding (VHRB) titanium (Ti)-steel clad composites have been increasingly serving in both severe corrosion and heavy load conditions, and their overall properties severely depend on the microstructure of interfacial reaction layer. Notably, introducing an appropriate interdiffusion barrier to minimize the brittle Fe–Ti intermetallics has still been a popular scheme for optimizing their interfacial properties. In this work, with two low-alloyed steels of 0.06 and 0.16 wt% carbon (C) contents employed, the pure Ti -steel composite samples were successfully prepared via vacuum hot-compressed bonding (VHCB) in Gleeble-3500 system under the identical temperature/reduction/rate condition of 850 °C/70 %/0.01s⁻¹. The interfacial reaction, microstructure and tensile property in two Ti-steel composites were investigated to estimate the C content effect via various characterizations, and the mechanisms were clarified. Results indicated that the diffusion of Ti, Fe and C mainly occurred in the interfacial reaction layers of two composites, and accordingly the reaction products of TiFe, TiFe₂ and TiC formed, together with the C-depleted α-Fe zone. The nanoscale TiC particles were mainly located at the steel side, and increased with the increasing C content. Correspondingly, the brittle TiFe layer and TiFe₂ layer decreased due to the increased TiC layer acting as a diffusion barrier. This led to an evident decrease of percent cleavage fracture area (CA, %) from 77% to 52% and a significant increase of interfacial tensile strength from 182 to 344 MPa.

真空热轧（VHRB）钛（Ti）钢复合材料越来越多地用于严重腐蚀和重载条件，其整体性能严重依赖于界面反应层的微观结构。值得注意的是，引入适当的相互扩散势垒来最小化脆性 Fe-Ti 金属间化合物仍然是优化其界面性能的流行方案。在这项工作中，使用两种碳（C）含量为 0.06 和 0.16 wt% 的低合金钢，在 Gleeble-3500 系统中通过真空热压结合（VHCB）在相同的条件下成功制备了纯钛钢复合材料样品。 850 °C/70 %/0.01s ^{-1 的}温度/还原/速率条件. 研究了两种钛钢复合材料的界面反应、微观结构和拉伸性能，以通过各种表征来估计 C 含量的影响，并阐明其机制。结果表明，Ti、Fe和C的扩散主要发生在两种复合材料的界面反应层中，相应地形成了TiFe、TiFe ₂和TiC的反应产物以及贫C的α-Fe区。纳米级 TiC 颗粒主要位于钢侧，并随着 C 含量的增加而增加。相应地，由于作为扩散阻挡层的 TiC 层增加，脆性 TiFe 层和 TiFe ₂层减少。这导致解理断裂面积百分比（CA, %) 从 77% 增加到 52%，界面拉伸强度从 182 MPa 显着增加到 344 MPa。