Identification of Process Parameters for Friction Stir Welding Ti–6Al–4V

Author(s):  
P. Edwards ◽  
M. Ramulu

An experimental study was conducted to identify acceptable welding parameters for friction stir welding Ti-6Al-4V butt joints, ranging from 3 mm to 12 mm in thickness. The primary parameters of interest were the spindle speed and feed rate. Welds were produced using spindle speeds of 140–320 rpm and feed rates between 40 mm/min and 125 mm/min. Joints were evaluated by macro- and micrometallurgical examination along with limited fatigue and tensile testing. The weld parameters were found to influence the microstructure, penetration, void formation, and tool wear among other things. A process window was identified for combinations of the feed rate and spindle speed capable of achieving defect free joints for a given tooling configuration and thickness. It was found that the tensile and fatigue properties of the welds produced in this study were comparable to Ti–6Al–4V base material properties.

2010 ◽  
Vol 433 ◽  
pp. 169-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Edwards ◽  
Mamidala Ramulu ◽  
Daniel G. Sanders

Friction Stir Welding of Ti-6Al-4V was performed on 5 mm thickness plate in order to assess the affect of welding conditions on the resulting microstructure and superplastic forming behavior of the joints. A variety of welding conditions were tested and all welds were subsequently Superplastically formed. It was found that the weld parameters do influence the microstructure and degree of superplastic performance of the joints. Spindle speed was found to have the most dominant affect on the resulting microstructure and superplastic forming behavior. Low spindle speed welds lead to fine grained microstructures and highly superplastic welds, relative to the base material, while high spindle speed welds larger grained microstructures and less superplastic welds.


Author(s):  
Sanjeev Verma ◽  
Vinod Kumar

Aluminium and its alloys are lightweight, corrosion-resistant, affordable and high-strength material and find wide applications in shipbuilding, automotive, constructions, aerospace and other industrial sectors. In applications like aerospace, marine and automotive industries, there is a need to join components made of different aluminium alloys, viz. AA6061 and AA5083. In this study friction stir welding (FSW) is used to join dissimilar plates made of AA6061-T6 and AA5083-O. The effect of varying tool pin profile, tool rotation speed, tool feed rate and tilt angle of the tool has been investigated on the tensile strength and percentage elongation of the welded joints. Box-Behkan design, with four input parameters and three levels of each parameter has been employed to decide the set of experimental runs. The regression models have been developed to investigate the influence of welding variables on the tensile strength and elongation of the welded joint. It is revealed that with the increase in welding parameters like tool rpm, tool feed rate and tilt angle of the tool, both the mechanical properties increase, reach a maximum level, followed by a decrease with further increase in the value of parameters. Amongst different types of tool pin profiles used, the FSW tool having straight cylindrical (SC) pin profile is found to yield the maximum strength and elongation of the welded joint for different combinations of welding parameters. Multiple response optimization indicates that the maximum UTS (135.83 MPa) and TE (4.35%) are obtained for the welded joint fabricated using FSW tool having SC pin profile, tilted at 1.11° and operating at tool speed and feed rate of 1568 rpm and 39.53 mm/min., respectively.


Metals ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. 1024 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Kosturek ◽  
Lucjan Śnieżek ◽  
Janusz Torzewski ◽  
Marcin Wachowski

The aim of this research was to investigate the effect of friction stir welding (FSW) parameters on microstructure and mechanical properties of Sc-modified AA2519 extrusion joints. The workpiece was welded by FSW in non-heat-treated condition with seven different sets of welding parameters. For each obtained joint macrostructure and microstructure observations were performed. Mechanical properties of joints were investigated using tensile test together with localization of fracture location. Joint efficiencies were established by comparing measured joints tensile strength to the value for base material. The obtained results show that investigated FSW joints of Sc-modified AA2519 in the non-heat-treated condition have joint efficiency within the range 87–95%. In the joints obtained with the lowest ratio of the tool rotation speed to the tool traverse speed, the occurrence of imperfections (voids) localized in the stir zone was reported. Three selected samples were subjected to further investigations consisting microhardness distribution and scanning electron microscopy fractography analysis. As the result of dynamic recrystallization, the microhardness of the base material value of 86 HV0.1 increased to about 110–125 HV0.1 in the stir zone depending on the used welding parameters. Due to lack of the strengthening phase and low strain hardening of used alloy the lack of a significantly softened zone was reported by both microhardness analysis and investigation of the fractured samples.


2020 ◽  
Vol 866 ◽  
pp. 54-62
Author(s):  
Hong Feng Wang ◽  
Sheng Rong Liu ◽  
Xiao Le Ge ◽  
Jia Fei Pu ◽  
Lei Bao ◽  
...  

10mm thickness AZ31B magnesium alloy was used as the friction stir welding object in this study. Different welding joints were obtained by setting different friction stir welding parameters. Metallographic analysis and impact loading test were carried out on the joint area. The experiment results show that (i) when the rotational speed of the stirring head is 600rpm and the welding speed is 120mm/min, the microstructure of the joint has the characteristics of compactness, thinning, and large-area twinning, which is beneficial to improve the plasticity of the joint area; (ii) the impact load of the joint is the highest, but lower than that of the base material, which is 95.5% of the base material; (iii) the fracture of impact specimen presents ductile fracture.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 769-782 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nagabhushan Kumar Kadigithala ◽  
Vanitha C

PurposeThe main purpose of the present work is to evaluate, the microstructural and mechanical properties of friction stir welded plates of AZ91D magnesium alloy with 3 mm thickness, and to determine the optimum range of welding conditions.Design/methodology/approachMicrostructure and fractographic studies were carried out using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Vickers micro hardness test was performed to evaluate the hardness profile in the region of the weld area. The phases in the material were confirmed by X-Ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. Transverse tensile tests were conducted using universal testing machine (UTM) to examine the joint strength of the weldments at different parameters.FindingsMetallographic studies revealed that each zone shown different lineaments depending on the mechanical and thermal conditions. Significant improvement in the hardness was observed between the base material and weldments. Transverse tensile test results of weldments had shown almost similar strength that of base material regardless of welding speed. Fractographic examination indicated that the welded specimens failed due to brittle mode fracture. Through these studies it was confirmed that friction stir welding (FSW) can be used for the welding of AZ91D magnesium alloy.Research limitations/implicationsIn the present study, the welding speed varied from 25 mm/min to 75 mm/min, tilt angle varied from 1.5° to 2.5° and constant rotational speed of 500 rpm.Practical implicationsMagnesium and aluminum based alloys which are having high strength and low density, used in automotive and aerospace applications can be successfully joined using FSW technique. The fusion welding defects can be eliminated by adopting this technique.Originality/valueLimited work had been carried out on the FSW of magnesium based alloys over aluminum based alloys. Furthermore, this paper analyses the influence of welding parameters over the microstructural and mechanical properties.


2018 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 352-359
Author(s):  
Zeng Gao ◽  
Jianguang Feng ◽  
Huanyu Yang ◽  
Jukka Pakkanen ◽  
Jitai Niu

Using friction stir welding, the electronic container box and lid made from aluminium matrix composites with reinforcement of SiC particle (15 vol% SiCp/Al-MMCs) was welded successfully with T-joint. The temperature distribution of box during the process, mechanical property and microstructure of the joint as well as gas tightness of welded box was investigated. The experimental results indicated that the satisfactory T-joint can be obtained under appropriate friction stir welding parameters. During the welding process, the bottom center, which was used to place the electronic component, reached a quite lower temperature of 100°C. That can ensure safety of components in the box. After the welding process, the microstructure in stir zone was better than in base material due to the refining and homogeneous distribution of the SiC particles. The experimental results showed that the electronic container box after friction stir welding had gas tightness. The He-leakage rate was under 10-8 Pa•m3/s.


2016 ◽  
Vol 835 ◽  
pp. 210-215
Author(s):  
Máté Nagy ◽  
Mária Behúlová

The paper deals with the friction stir welding (FSW) of the high strength EN AW 7075-T651 aluminium alloy with the aim to analyze the influence of welding parameters on the mechanical properties of Al-weld joints. FSW represents relatively novel solid-state technology of material joining which can be successfully applied for welding of several metallic alloys including the high-strength aluminium alloys that are hard to weld by conventional fusion welding processes. In cooperation with VÚZ - PI SR Bratislava, nine experimental weld joints of samples with dimensions of 300 × 150 × 10 mm were prepared using the welding machine of the FSW-LM-060 type and different parameters of welding – the welding speed from 60 to 120 mm/min and the tool rotation rate from 600 to 1000 rpm in clockwise direction. The quality of weld joints was evaluated by static tensile tests and micro-hardness measurements. According to obtained results of tensile testing, the average values of ultimate strength of weld joints are by 32.2 % lower comparing with the ultimate strength of the base material. On the other hand, the ductility increased by 7.2 %. The highest micro-hardness of weld joints at the level of 129 HV was measured in thermo-mechanically affected zone on the retreating side.


2014 ◽  
Vol 1051 ◽  
pp. 799-807 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Dan Zhang ◽  
Wen Qing Qu ◽  
Qun Bo Lv ◽  
Yang Yang Liu ◽  
Wei Yan Li ◽  
...  

In this study, the Al-Li alloy plates were friction stir welded (FSW) at different welding parameters, and the effect of welding parameters on the hardness, tensile and fatigue properties of the butted and lapped FSWed joints were investigated. The experimental results showed that the ultimate strength and elongation of butted joints decreased as the heat input increasing, and the maximum ultimate strength of the joints was equivalent to 83% that of the base material. By comparison of the heat inputs during welding process at different parameter combinations, the relationship between the microstructure and mechanical property of FSWed joints was established. For the overlapped welds made in 2mm thick plates of Al-Li-S4 and 2099 alloys, the hooking defect was a typical and inevitable defect appearing on the TMAZ of both advancing and retreating sides, which would adversely damage the mechanical properties of overlapped joints. Furthermore, the length of pin significantly affected the tensile property of overlapped joints, when the length of pin varies from 2.8mm to 2.5mm, the ultimate strength increased 14% to 20%. In addition, the fatigue lifetime of overlapped joints was lower than that of butted joints and base metal.


2010 ◽  
Vol 433 ◽  
pp. 153-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel G. Sanders ◽  
Paul Edwards ◽  
Mamidala Ramulu ◽  
Glenn Grant

In friction stir welding (FSW), the semi-circular shaped FSW pin tool feed marks that are left behind varied in depth and shape which are detrimental not only in fatigue performance but also in further processing such as superplastic forming (SPF). Experimental investigation was conducted to determine the effects of changes to the FSW process parameters on the surface roughness of the weld of fine grain 2 mm thick titanium alloy, Ti- 6Al-4V. In addition to optimizing the surface texture of the welds, the superplastic performance of the weld nugget was made to be equal to the superplasticity of the parent metal by altering the spindle speed and feed rate used during FSW to identify the quality in terms of cold weld or hot weld. FSW process conditions of spindle speed of 500 RPM and a feed rate of 150 mm/min was found to produce a uniform deformation in both weld and parent metal when the joint was superplastc formed.


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