Effect of welding parameters on microstructure and mechanical properties of AA6061-T6 butt welded joints by stationary shoulder friction stir welding

Stationary shoulder friction stir welding (SSFSW) butt welded joints were fabricated successfully for AA6061-T6 sheets with 5.0 mm thickness. The welding experiments were performed using 750–1500 rpm tool rotation speeds and 100–300 mm/min welding speeds. The effects of welding parameters on microstructure and mechanical properties for the obtained welds were discussed and analyzed in detail. It is verified that the defect-free SSFSW welds with fine and smooth surface were obtained for all the selected welding parameters, and the weld transverse sections are obviously different from that of conventional FSW joint. The SSFSW nugget zone (NZ) has “bowl-like” shapes with fairly narrow thermal mechanically affected zone (TMAZ) and heat affected zone (HAZ) and the microstructures of weld region are rather symmetrical and homogeneous. The 750–1500 rpm rotation speeds apparently increase the widths of NZ, TMAZ and HAZ, while the influences of 100–300 mm/min welding speeds on their widths are weak. The softening regions with the average hardness equivalent 60% of the base metal are produced on both advancing side and retreating side. The tensile properties of AA6061-T6 SSFSW joints are almost unaffected by the 750–1500 rpm rotation speeds for given 100 mm/min, while the changing of welding speed from 100–300 mm/min for given 1500 rpm obviously increased the tensile strength of the joint and the maximum value for welding parameter 1500 rpm and 300 mm/min reached 77.3% of the base metal strength. The tensile fracture sites always locate in HAZ either on the advancing side or retreating side of the joints.     

Effect of heat input on the microstructure and mechanical properties of gas tungsten arc welded AISI 304 stainless steel joints

Influence of heat input on the microstructure and mechanical properties of gas tungsten arc welded 304 stainless steel (SS) joints was studied. Three heat input combinations designated as low heat (2.563 kJ/mm), medium heat (2.784 kJ/mm) and high heat (3.017 kJ/mm) were selected from the operating window of the gas tungsten arc welding process (GTAW) and weld joints made using these combinations were subjected to microstructural evaluations and tensile testing so as to analyze the effect of thermal arc energy on the microstructure and mechanical properties of these joints. The results of this investigation indicate that the joints made using low heat input exhibited higher ultimate tensile strength (UTS) than those welded with medium and high heat input. Significant grain coarsening was observed in the heat affected zone (HAZ) of all the joints and it was found that the extent of grain coarsening in the heat affected zone increased with increase in the heat input. For the joints investigated in this study it was also found that average dendrite length and inter-dendritic spacing in the weld zone increases with increase in the heat input which is the main reason for the observable changes in the tensile properties of the weld joints welded with different arc energy inputs.     

Effects of post-weld heat treatment on microstructure and mechanical properties of friction stir welded joints of 2219-O aluminium alloy

Abstract

Post-weld heat treatment (PWHT) of 2219-O aluminium alloy friction stir welding joints was carried out at solution temperatures of 480, 500 and 540°C for 32 min followed by aging at 130°C for 9 h. The effects of PWHT on the microstructure and mechanical properties of the joints were investigated. Experimental results show that PWHT causes coarsening of the grains in the weld, and the coarsening degree increases with increasing solution temperature. The tensile strength of the heat treated joints increases with increasing solution temperature. The maximum tensile strength can reach 260% that of the base material at the solution temperature of 540°C. PWHT has a significant effect on the fracture locations of the joints. When the solution temperature is lower than 500°C, the joints fracture in the base material; when the temperature is higher than 500°C, the joints fracture in the weld. The change of the fracture locations of joints is attributed to the presence of precipitate free zones beside the grain boundaries and coarsening equiaxed grain structures in the weld.     

Effect of welding parameters on microstructure and mechanical properties of friction stir welded joints of AA7039 aluminum alloy

A high strength Al–Zn–Mg alloy AA7039 was friction stir welded by varying welding and rotary speed of the tool in order to investigate the effect of varying welding parameters on microstructure and mechanical properties. The friction stir welding (FSW) process parameters have great influence on heat input per unit length of weld, hence on temperature profile which in turn governs the microstructure and mechanical properties of welded joints. There exits an optimum combination of welding and rotary speed to produce a sound and defect free joint with microstructure that yields maximum mechanical properties. The mechanical properties increase with decreasing welding speed/ increasing rotary speed i.e. with increasing heat input per unit length of welded joint. The high heat input joints fractured from heat affected zone (HAZ) adjacent to thermo-mechanically affected zone (TMAZ) on advancing side while low heat input joints fractured from weld nugget along zigzag line on advancing side.     

Influence of post-weld heat treatments on microstructure and mechanical properties of gas tungsten arc maraging steel weldments

Abstract

The response to post-weld heat treatment of an 18%Ni (250 grade) gas tungsten arc weld metal has been investigated. The post-weld heat treatments are (a) direct aging at 480°C/3 h/air cooling, (b) solutionising at 815°C/1 h/air cooling+aging at 480°C/3 h/air cooling and (c) homogenisation at 1150°C/1 h/air cooling+solutionising at 815°C/1 h/air cooling+aging at 480°C/3 h/air cooling. Metallographic characterisation of fusion zone revealed pronounced segregation of titanium and molybdenum along the interdendritic and intercellular boundaries. This led, during subsequent aging, to austenite reversion at temperatures much lower than in wrought (unwelded) material. Solutionised treatment at 815°C does not remove the segregation. Homogenisation treatment (1150°C/1 h/air cooling) succeeded in making the composition become homogenised. Mechanical properties including tensile, hardness and impact toughness were evaluated. Tensile test results showed that directly aged weldments exhibited lower strength but higher ductility than the other cases; this was attributed to the presence of reverted austenite. Homogenisation at 1150°C/1 h/air cooling+solutionising at 815°C/1 h/air cooling+aging at 480°C/3 h/air cooling resulted in optimum tensile properties. A substantial increase in fusion zone toughness was observed after homogenisation+solutionising+aged condition due to a decrease in the content of austenite content compared to the directly aged condition. The reduction in microsegregation by diffusion of alloying elements from cell boundaries to the cell during homogenisation treatment is responsible for the decrease in austenite content.     

Study on welding process and prosperities of AA5754 Al-alloy welded by double pulsed gas metal arc welding

In this paper, the effect of double pulsed gas metal arc welding (DP-GMAW) on metal droplet transfer, weld pool profile, weld bead geometry and weld joint mechanical properties of Al alloy AA5754 are presented. A high speed camera was utilized to reveal the metal transfer behavior and weld pool profile. A self-developed electrical signal acquire system was adopted to record the current waveform during welding process. The results indicated that the metal transfer, weld pool profile and weld bead geometry in DP-GMAW significantly differ with P-GMAW. The microstructure showed that grain size of the weld bead decreased with increasing of thermal pulse frequency, and the eutectic precipitates Mg₂Si were homogeneously distributed at fusion zone. The mechanical properties of welded joints were improved.     

Effects of post-weld heat treatment cycles on microstructure and mechanical properties of electric resistance welded pipe welds

Two post-weld heat treatment cycles of one-step normalizing and two-step quenching and tempering have been performed by Gleeble, a thermo-mechanical simulator, to improve the toughness of fine-grained electric resistance welded pipe welds. Comparison was made to API X65 grade steel, which is widely used for pipeline parts. Microstructural evolution was investigated by optical microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. Vickers hardness and Charpy V-notch impact toughness tests were used to evaluate the mechanical properties. While the mechanical properties of one-step normalizing heat treatment satisfied the API specification, the two-step quenching and tempering heat treatments were conditional upon tempering temperature for X65 grade and fine-grained steels. As a result, a one-step normalizing heat treatment was more effective for both steel pipes.     

Effect of welding parameters on microstructure and mechanical properties of AA7075‐T6 friction stir welded joints

The effects of advancing speed and rotational speed on the microstructure and the mechanical properties of friction stir welded 7075‐T6 aluminium alloy sheets were studied. The fatigue strength of sound joints was measured and compared to tensile testing results. Macrographs and microhardness maps were carried out to reveal the microstructure transformations. Fractographic observations were made to identify the failure mechanisms. The effects of welding parameters on the fatigue strength are discussed in terms of welding pitch k (mm/rev) and heat input (J/mm). At a high welding pitch, crack initiation at the root of the circular grooves left by the tool on the weld surface is the most detrimental failure mechanism. As the size and the depth of the grooves are related to the welding pitch, the fatigue strength increases when the welding pitch is reduced. However, when the heat input is excessive, the failure is caused by sub‐surface defects produced after abnormal stirring and/or by softening of the heat‐affected zone. Lateral lips on the weld surface edges also have an effect on the fatigue strength for intermediate welding pitch values.     

Testing of explosive welding and welded joints. The microstructure of explosive welded joints and their mechanical properties

The present essential models and some theories were applied to explain the wavy phenomenon, microstructure and mechanical properties of the characteristic joint area. Two phenomena occurring in the plate collision zone during welding were carefully tested. These phenomena were connected with forming the wavy joint surface and the interpass. The available data referring to forming the interpass were further developed.     

Effect of welding parameters on microstructure and mechanical properties of friction stir welded 2219Al-T6 joints

The effect of friction stir welding (FSW) parameters on the microstructure and mechanical properties of 5.6 mm thick 2219Al-T6 joints was investigated in detail. While the sound FSW joints could be obtained under lower rotation rates of 400–800 rpm and welding speeds of 100–800 mm/min; higher rotation rates of 1200–1600 rpm easily led to the tunnel and void defects. The FSW thermal cycle resulted in low hardness zones (LHZs) on both retreating side (RS) and advancing side (AS). The LHZs may be located at the interface between the nugget zone (NZ) and the thermo-mechanically affected zone (TMAZ), at the TMAZ, or at the heat affected zone under the varied welding parameters. The tensile strength of FSW 2219Al-T6 joints increased when increasing the welding speed from 100 to 800 mm/min, and was weakly dependent on the rotation rates from 400 to 1200 rpm. The FSW 2219Al-T6 joints fractured along the LHZ on the RS.     

Comparative experimental study on the modification of microstructural and mechanical properties of friction stir welded and gas metal arc welded EN AW‐6061 O aluminum alloys by post‐weld heat treatment

In this paper, the effects of post‐weld heat treatment on modification of microstructures and mechanical properties of friction stir welded and gas metal arc welded AA6061‐O plates were compared with each other. Gas metal arc welding and friction stir welding were used as the applicable welding processes for AA6061‐O alloys. The applied post‐weld heat treatment consisted of solution heat treatment, followed by water quenching and finally artificial aging. The samples were classified as post‐weld heat treated and as‐welded joints. The microstructural evolution, tensile properties, hardness features and fracture surfaces of both as‐welded and post‐weld heat treated samples were reported. The results clearly showed that friction stir welding process demonstrated better and more consistent mechanical properties by comparison with the gas metal arc welding process. The weld region of as‐welded samples exhibited a higher hardness value of 80 HV0.1 compared to the base material. In addition, the feasibility of post‐weld heat treatment in order to enhance the mechanical properties and to obtain more homogeneous microstructure of 6061‐O aluminum alloys was evaluated.     

Effect of post-weld aging treatment on mechanical properties of Tungsten Inert Gas welded low thickness 7075 aluminium alloy joints

This paper reports the influence of post-weld aging treatment on the microstructure, tensile strength, hardness and Charpy impact energy of weld joints low thickness 7075 T6 aluminium alloy welded by Tungsten Inert Gas (TIG). Hot cracking occurs in aluminium welds when high levels of thermal stress and solidification shrinkage are present while the weld is undergoing various degrees of solidification. Weld fusion zones typically exhibit microstructure modifications because of the thermal conditions during weld metal solidification. This often results in low weld mechanical properties and low resistance to hot cracking. It has been observed that the mechanical properties are very sensitive to microstructure of weld metal. Simple post-weld aging treatment at 140 °C applied to the joints is found to be beneficial to enhance the mechanical properties of the welded joints. Correlations between microstructures and mechanical properties were discussed.     

Effect of post-weld heat treatment on the microstructure and plastic deformation behavior of friction stir welded 2024

To improve the plasticity of friction stir welded joints for plastic processing applications, post-weld heat treatment (PWHT) of 2024-O aluminum alloy friction stir welding joints was carried out at annealing temperatures from 250 °C to 450 °C with an interval of 50 °C for 2 h, followed by cooling to 200 °C in the furnace. The effect of PWHT on the microstructure and plastic deformation behavior of the joints was investigated. It was found that the fine-equiaxed grains are stable and retained in the nugget of the joints even after annealing at 450 °C for 2 h. However, the grains in the thermo-mechanically affected zone (TMAZ) of the joints become coarse and equiaxed as annealing temperature increases. The plastic deformation of as-welded joint is very heterogeneous. In contrast, the plastic deformation of PWHT joint is relatively homogeneous by both the nugget and the base material showing large deformation. The decrease in elongation of as-welded joints is completely recovered by PWHT. The high ductility of the joint is mainly attributed to the retention of the fine-equiaxed grains in the nugget during PWHT.     

The effect of post weld heat treatment on the properties of 6061 friction stir welded joints

Post weld heat treatment (PWHT) of Friction Stir Welds (FSW) was carried out at solutioninsing temperatures of 520, 540, and 560°C followed by ageing at 175°C or 200°C. It was found that the weld (stir) region exhibited very coarse grains after the PWHT. The hardness was found to be uniform across the weldment after the PWHT. The samples failed after PWHT during root bend test. Heat treatments to reduce the grain size did not reduce the brittleness of the welds. The brittleness was attributed to the presence of precipitate free zones adjacent to the grain boundaries and the equiaxed structure of the weldment microstructure and the failure was due to a ductile intergranular fracture mechanism.     

Effect of ultrasonic welding parameters on microstructure and mechanical properties of dissimilar joints

Ultrasonic spot welding has received significant attention during past few years due to their suitable applications in comparison to conventional fusion welding techniques. Fusion welding of dissimilar Aluminum and Stainless steel alloys is always a challenging task because of poor control on grain size and formation of undesirable brittle intermetallic compounds in the weld metal, which have deleterious effect on mechanical properties. In the past, welding of dissimilar alloys has been performed using electron beam welding, laser beam welding and friction stir spot welding, resistance spot welding, etc. However, little work has been reported on dissimilar welding of Aluminum and Stainless steel alloys using ultrasonic spot welding. The objective of the present work is to optimize ultrasonic spot welding parameters for joining 3003 Aluminum alloy with 304 Stainless steel. Welding was performed at various clamping pressures (i.e. 30, 40, 50 and 60 psi) and energy levels for investigating its effect on microstructure, mechanical properties and bond quality of the weld. Different levels of weld quality i.e. ‘under weld’, ‘good weld’ and ‘overweld’ were identified at various welding parameters using physical attributes. The weld specimens prepared with energy 125 and 150 J showed the maximum bond strength and were rated as “good” weld. It was also revealed that for a good quality weld, the maximum tensile strength is achieved once a reasonable amount of bond density and material thinning (required for the formation of metallurgical bonds) is attained.     

Effect of backplate diffusivity on microstructure and mechanical properties of friction stir welded joints

Series of welds were made by friction stir welding (FSW) with various backplates made out of materials ranging from low diffusivity granite to high diffusivity copper in order to reveal the effect of backplate diffusivity on the joint microstructure and properties. The temperature, microstructure, microhardness and tensile properties of joints were compared and discussed. Results show that the backplate with high diffusivity effectively decreases the heat input to the workpiece during FSW. With decreasing the backplate diffusivity the sizes of equiaxed recrystallized grains in the nugget zone increase obviously, while the hardness of the nugget zone also increases a little. The interface between the thermo-mechanically affected zone and nugget zone at the retreating side disappears under the granite backplate. Moreover, the ductility of the joint is more excellent under the copper backplate, but under the granite backplate the failure has mixed fracture characteristics of quasi-cleavage and dimples.     

Effect of post-weld heat treatment on microstructure and properties of electron beam welded joint of Ti2AlNb/TC11

Abstract

The present paper reports the influence of post-weld heat treatment (PWHT) on microstructure and properties of electron beam welded dissimilar joint. Ti₂AlNb and TC11 alloys were used to fabricate the joints. Three PWHTs were applied to the welded joints. The structures were analysed using optical microscopy, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy techniques. The results show that weld metal of the fusion zone is mainly composed of α₂ and β phases. As the energy input increases under different PWHTs, the decomposition degree of metastable phases (α′/β) rises, but the tensile strength and impact toughness of the joint reduce. Under each condition, the tensile strength of the joint is higher than that of the TC11 base metal.