Dimensional instability of LF21 aluminum alloy weldments at room temperature and after thermal cycles

Dimensional instability of LF21 aluminum alloy weldments at room temperature and after thermal cycles

The unstable dimensional distortion of LF21 aluminum alloy weldments at room temperature and after thermal cycles was studied by use of light interference and CMM. At the same time, distortion mechanism was analyzed from the viewpoint of mechanics and microstructure. Experimental results show that there exists obvious difference of unstable dimensional distortion between LF21 welded specimens under two conditions mentioned above. Under room temperature, dimensional variation of welded specimens will decrease gradually and finally tends to be stable during 130 h after welding. The relative elongation of welded specimen is 4.2×10-5. After thermal cycles, distortion of welded specimen is much larger than that at room temperature. After 11 thermal cycles, the dimension will tend to be stable. Dimensional unstable distortion of weldments mainly results from temperature condition, microstructure variation and relaxation of welding residual stress.