A review of numerical analysis of friction stir welding

Friction stir welding is a relatively new solid-state joining technique which is widely adopted in different industry fields to join different metallic alloys that are hard to weld by conventional fusion welding. Friction stir welding is a highly complex process comprising several highly coupled physical phenomena. The complex geometry of some kinds of joints and their three dimensional nature make it difficult to develop an overall system of governing equations for theoretical analyzing the behavior of the friction stir welded joints. The experiments are often time consuming and costly. To overcome these problems, numerical analysis has frequently been used since the 2000s. This paper reviews the latest developments in the numerical analysis of friction stir welding processes, microstructures of friction stir welded joints and the properties of friction stir welded structures. Some important numerical issues such as materials flow modeling, meshing procedure and failure criteria are discussed. Numerical analysis of friction stir welding will allow many different welding processes to be simulated in order to understand the effects of changes in different system parameters before physical testing, which would be time-consuming or prohibitively expensive in practice. The main methods used in numerical analysis of friction stir welding are discussed and illustrated with brief case studies. In addition, several important key problems and issues remain to be addressed about the numerical analysis of friction stir welding and opportunities for further research are identified.     

Dissimilar friction stir welding between magnesium and aluminum alloys

Dissimilar friction stir welding between magnesium and aluminum alloy plates with thicknesses of 2 mm was performed. The tool for welding was rotated at speeds ranging from 800 to 1600 rpm under a constant traverse speed of 300 mm/min. For tool rotation speeds of 1000, 1200, and 1400 rpm, defect-free welds were successfully obtained and the surface morphology of the welds became smoother as the tool rotation speed was increased. The relatively simple bonded interface was clearly evident and had a zigzag pattern. A mixed microstructure of magnesium and aluminum alloys was formed near the bonded interface. The maximum tensile strength of about 132 MPa was obtained at the tool rotation speed of 1000 rpm. However, there were not noteworthy changes in the tensile strength as a function of the tool rotation speed. The elongation was 2% or less, regardless of the tool rotation speed.     

On the double-side probeless friction stir spot welding of AA2198 Al-Li alloy

Double-side probeless friction stir spot welding(DP-FSSW) of AA2198 alloy was conducted to investigate the microstructure and mechanical properties. Compared with common single-side probeless friction stir spot welding(P-FSSW), the plastic strain during DP-FSSW is nearly symmetrical with respect to the bondline to suppress the extension of hook defect, which is detrimental to the joint mechanical strength.With DP-FSSW, a fully metallurgically bonded region has formed due to severe plastic deformation at high temperatures. Tensile/shear tests show that the joint strength could exceed 8 kN, which is comparable to P-FSSW and refill FSSW, and all fractures happen in a shear failure mode as cracks extend along the interface of two sheets. The microhardness profile exhibits a uniform distribution along the thickness direction, in which the hook defect shows the lowest value.     

Effect of welding parameters on microstructure and mechanical properties of friction stir welded joints of a super high strength Al–Zn–Mg–Cu aluminum alloy

Samples made of a super high strength aluminum alloy with high Zn content were friction stir welded with rotation rates of 350–950 rpm and welding speeds of 50–150 mm/min. The effect of welding parameters on the microstructure and mechanical properties was investigated. It was observed that the grain size of the nugget zones decreased with the increasing welding speed or the decreasing tool rotation rate. Most of the strengthening precipitates in the nugget zone were dissolved back and the intragranular and grain boundary precipitates in the heat affected zone coarsened significantly. The greatest ultimate tensile strength of 484 MPa and largest elongation of 9.4 were obtained at 350 rpm−100 mm/min and 350 rpm−50 mm/min, respectively. The ultimate tensile strength and elongation deteriorated drastically when rotation rate increased from 350 to 950 rpm at a constant welding speed of 100 mm/min.     

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.     

Flat friction stir spot welding of low carbon steel by double side adjustable tools

2 mm low carbon steel plates were successfully welded by the flat friction stir spot welding(FSSW) using double side adjustable tools, by which the keyhole formed in the conventional FSSW was eliminated and a flat surface on both the top and bottom sides of the welded joints was obtained. In addition, the hook shape usually generated in the conventional FSSW was eliminated by this technique, and the unbonded interface was parallel to the surface of the sheets. Owing to the enlarged bonded interface width by eliminating the keyhole and the intermixed interface by the adjustable probe, the plug fracture occurred under all the welding conditions in the present study. Due to the suppression of the thickness thinning and elimination of the hook shape, the joint performance was improved in the plug fracture mode. The shear tensile performance was considered to strongly depend on the microstructure in the tip area of the unbonded interface and the maximum shear fracture load of 23.0 kN was achieved in this study.     

A novel approach to develop aluminum matrix nano-composite employing friction stir welding technique

The main object of the present study is to investigate the effect of nano-sized SiC particle on the mechanical properties of the friction stir welding (FSW) joints. Prior to FSW, nano-sized SiC particles were incorporated into the joint line. A combination of three rotational speeds and three traveling speeds were applied. Microstructural evaluation using optical microscopy (OM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) revealed a banded structure consisting of particle-rich and particle-free regions in stir zone (SZ). The joints fabricated with rotational speed of 1250 rpm and traveling speeds of 40 and 50 mm/min, exhibited the highest mechanical properties. Owing to the presence of SiC nano-particles, at 1250 rpm and 40 mm/min, ultimate tensile strength (UTS) and percentage of elongation were improved by 31% and 76.1%, respectively. Significant increase in UTS and percentage of elongation were attributed to the pinning effect and increased nucleation sites associated with SiC nano-particles. Moreover, reinforcement particles resulted in breaking of primary grains. On the other hand, at 1250 rpm and 40 mm/min, SiC-included specimen showed superior ductility to SiC-free specimen. The fracture morphologies were in good agreement with corresponding ductility results.     

Friction stir welding of aluminium hollow extrusion: weld formation and mechanical properties

Novel friction stir welding (FSW) technique, characterised by big concave upper and small convex lower shoulders, for aluminium hollow extrusion was studied. Assisted with the lower shoulder, root flaws due to the lack of tool penetration have been eliminated. The tensile strength increased with increasing welding speed. As the welding speed increases from 50 to 200 mm min^?1, the width of the welding nugget zone (WNZ) decreases, and the ductile fractured location occurred at WNZ instead of heat affected zone (HAZ) adjacent to thermomechanically affected zone (TMAZ). The interface between the TMAZ and HAZ exhibited the lowest microhardness. The results indicated that the novel FSW method has the potential to join tubular structures and hollow profiles widely used in transportation industries.     

Effect of tool pin eccentricity on microstructure and mechanical properties in friction stir welded 7075 aluminum alloy thick plate

Four different tools with the pin eccentricity of 0.1 mm, 0.2 mm, 0.3 mm and 0.4 mm were designed to friction stir weld 10 mm thick AA7075-O plate. The effect of pin eccentricity on microstructure, secondary phase particles transformation and mechanical properties of the joints was investigated. The results show that the nugget area (A_NZ) increases firstly and then decreases with increasing the pin eccentricity. When the pin with 0.2 mm eccentricity is applied, the A_NZ is the largest; meanwhile the grains size is the smallest which is about 3 μm and secondary phase particles are the most dispersive in nugget zone compared with other tools. While the grains are coarsened to 7–11 μm as the eccentricity is more than 0.4 mm, some coarse hardening particles get to cluster in the thermo-mechanically affected zone. The joints produced by the pin with 0.2 mm eccentricity perform the highest tensile strength and elongation, which is attributed to better interfaces, finer grains and more dispersive secondary phase particles.     

Microstructural evolution and mechanical properties of dissimilar Al–Cu joints produced by friction stir welding

5A02 aluminum alloy and pure copper were joined by friction stir welding (FSW). A defect-free joint was obtained when one of process parameters, i.e. the traverse speed was lowered from 40 mm/min to 20 mm/min. A good mixing of Al and Cu was observed in the weld nugget zone (WNZ). A large amount of fine Cu particles were dispersed in the upper part of the WNZ producing a composite-like structure. In the lower part, nano-scaled intercalations were observed and identified by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). These layered structures were subsequently confirmed as Al₄Cu₉ (γ), Al₂Cu₃ (ε), Al₂Cu (θ), respectively. Formation of these microstructures caused an inhomogeneous hardness profile. Particularly, a distinct rise in hardness was noticed at the Al/Cu interface. Excellent metallurgical bonding between Al and Cu gave rise to good behaviors in the tensile and bending strength.     

Material flow during friction stir spot welding of dissimilar Al2024/Al materials

In the present paper, the material flow and intermixing during friction stir spot welding of dissimilar Al2024/Al materials were investigated. The dissimilar materials had quite different strength. The microstructural evolutions taking place during a series of lap and butt welds were observed. The effect of penetration depths, dwell time, rotational speed and tool geometry were systematically investigated. The material flow and formation of the intermixed region were explained by a modified model.     

A general strategy for the reliable joining of Al/Ti dissimilar alloys via ultrasonic assisted friction stir welding

Ultrasonic assisted friction stir welding (UaFSW) was used to join 6061-T6 aluminum and Ti6Al4V alloys. A small plunge depth endowed with the low heat input was used and the sound joints without obvious thickness reduction were achieved. A diffusion-type bonding without the intermetallic compounds layer was observed at the joint interface. The ultrasonic improved the diffusion thickness and decreased the average size of grains and titanium alloy fragments. A hook-like structure was formed at the bottom interface of the UaFSW joint, which improved the bonding length and the mechanical interlocking. The microhardness of the stir zone was increased because of the further grain refinement induced by ultrasonic. The maximum tensile strength of the UaFSW joint was 236 MPa, which reached 85% of the base 6061-T6 alloy.     

Modification of mechanical properties of friction stir welded Cu joint by additional liquid CO2 cooling

A notable effect of the retained heat after the fiction stir welding (FSW) of Cu was studied by the application of additional liquid CO₂ cooling. The adjustment of the welding parameters made it possible to conduct the FSW processes, but the cooling rate of the joint was not sufficiently changed due to the existence of the post-annealing effect. However, the accelerated cooling can reduce the post-annealing effect and provide an ultrafine grain structure with a high dislocation density in the stir zone, and a joint with mechanical properties better than the base metal level was achieved.     

Improving weld formability by a novel dual-rotation bobbin tool friction stir welding

A novel dual-rotation bobbin tool friction stir welding (DBT-FSW) was developed, in which the upper shoulder (US) and lower shoulder (LS) have different rotational speeds. This process was tried to weld 3.2 mm thick aluminum-lithium alloy sheets. The metallographic analysis and torque measurement were carried out to characterize the weld formability. Experimental results show that compared to conventional bobbin tool friction stir welding, the DBT-FSW has an excellent process stability, and can produce the defect-free joints in a wider range of welding parameters. These can be attributed to the significant improvement of material flow caused by the formation of a staggered layer structure and the unbalanced force between the US and LS during the DBT-FSW process.     

Fabrication of large-bulk ultrafine grained 6061 aluminum alloy by rolling and low-heat-input friction stir welding

In this study, the ultrafine grained (UFG) 6061 Al alloys fabricated by cold rolling were friction stir welded (FSW) with different rotation rates under both air cooling and rapid cooling in water. Low-heat-input parameters of 400 rpm rotation rate in water (400-Water) could effectively inhibit the coarsening of recrystallized grains, reduce the precipitation rate, and retain more dislocations of the UFG 6061 Al parent metal. 400-Water joint showed high lowest-hardness value, narrow low-hardness zone, and high tensile strength, attributing to the effect of dislocation, grain boundary, solid-solution, and precipitation hardening. This work provides an effective strategy to fabricate large-sized bulk UFG Al alloy by cold rolling with large deformation and low-heat-input FSW.     

Inhomogeneous microstructure and mechanical properties of friction stir processed NiAl bronze

As-cast Cu–9Al–4.5Ni–4Fe NiAl bronze (NAB) alloy was subjected to friction stir processing (FSP) in a wide range of tool rotation rates of 800–2000 rpm and traverse speeds of 50–200 mm/min. After FSP, the initial coarse microstructure of the as-cast NAB was transformed to fine structure, and the porosity defects were eliminated. However, the stir zones were characterized by inhomogeneous structure and could be divided into four regions: fine Widmanstätten primary α phase in the surface layer, banded primary α and β′ phases in the subsurface layer, equiaxed α and β′ phases in the center, and streamlike α and β′ phases at the bottom. The heterogeneous microstructure could be alleviated by adjusting the FSP parameters, but could not be completely eliminated under investigated FSP parameters. The FSP NAB exhibited significantly improved hardness, tensile strength, and ductility compared to the base metal. When the NAB was subjected to two pass FSP, its microstructure was further homogenized, resulting in apparently increased ductility with similar hardness and tensile strength.     

Achieving ultra-high strength friction stir welded joints of high nitrogen stainless steel by forced water cooling

The microstructure and properties of water-cooled and air-cooled friction stir welded (FSW) ultra-high strength high nitrogen stainless steel joints were comparatively studied. With additional rapid cooling by flowing water, the peak temperature and duration at elevated temperature during FSW were significantly reduced. Compared to those in the air-cooled joint, nugget zone with finer grains (900 nm) and heat affected zone with higher dislocation density were successfully obtained in the water-cooled joint, leading to significantly improved mechanical properties. The wear of the welding tool was significantly reduced with water cooling, resulting in better corrosion resistance during the immersion corrosion test.     

The potential adaptation of stationary shoulder friction stir welding technology to steel

Stationary shoulder friction stir welding is a newly developed technique currently used for joining plates of relatively soft metals at different angular planes. The process is not currently applicable to steel, hence the present study was developed to investigate the theoretical and technical viability of stationary shoulder technology in DH36 steel. Aluminium welds were produced using both conventional rotating shoulder and stationary shoulder friction stir welding techniques, and steel welds were produced using only conventional friction stir welding techniques. The effects of stationary shoulder technology on both the microstructural evolution and resultant mechanical properties of aluminium have been evaluated so that the likely effects on steel could be predicted. In the aluminium welds, the stationary shoulder technique results in a distinct transition between stirred and unstirred material, contrasting to the gradual change typically seen in conventional friction stir welds produced with a rotating shoulder. An investigation of weld properties produced in DH36 steel has demonstrated that if the stationary shoulder weld technique was used, the microstructure likely to be formed, would be dominated by a bainitic ferrite phase and so would exhibit hardness and tensile properties in excess of the parent material. It is predicted that if the same abrupt transition between unstirred and stirred material observed in aluminium occurred in steel, this would lead to crack initiation, followed by rapid propagation through the relatively brittle weld microstructure. Hence, these findings demonstrate that without further design and process improvements, stationary shoulder friction stir welding is unlikely to be applicable to steel.     

Numerical simulation and experimental investigation on friction stir welding of 6061-T6 aluminum alloy

A modified three-dimensional model was established to simulate the friction stir welding of the 6061-T6 aluminum alloy. A detailed calculating method of the heat generation was proposed by taking account of the contact conditions between the tool and the work-piece. The results show that the heat mainly generated within the region close to the shoulder, the high temperature exists within the upper portion of the weld and decreases along the thickness direction. The strong material flow mainly occurs within the region around the tool and the material ahead of the tool sweeps toward the RS and finally deposits behind the tool. During this procedure the material is extruded to experience different shear orientations, and a defect-prone region exists in the region where material flow is weak. The temperature field and material flow behaviors predicted by the simulation method are in good agreement with the results obtained by the experiments.