Aluminum alloys

Friction stir welding

Friction stir welding (FSW) is a solid-state joining process used to join two similar and dissimilar materials below the liquidus temperature of the material. It is a recently developed technique by The Welding Institute (TWI) in 1991. The advantages of FSW over conventional welding techniques had led to its advancements in almost all the industrial sectors. The increasing demand for the high strength to weight ratio components has led to various materials in industries such as polymers, ceramics, metals, composites, etc.

Modeling and Simulation of advanced manufacturing processes

Modeling and Simulation of advanced manufacturing processes

Surface composites

The addition of reinforcement into the surface instead of bulk improves mechanical properties and boosts the surface properties of the composite. Friction stir processing (FSP) is a solid-state processing route for the fabrication of surface composite. Compared to the conventional liquid state processing route, the FSP is a compatible and energy-efficient process for fabricating surface composites. The FSP is a variant of the friction stir welding (FSW) process, carried out at a lower temperature than the base metal’s melting temperature.

Friction stir channeling

The friction stir channel (FSC) extends the friction stir process where an integral channel is fabricated by continuous voids or tunnel defects. FSC can generate the subsurface path in complex shapes as the processing is performed from the workpiece surface. The unique features of the process can fulfil the advanced heat sink applications in critical thermal management systems such as cooling of EV battery cells, data servers, jet engines and aircraft components.

Heat treatment of alloys

Aluminum AA6082 extruded plates are solutionized at 520°C, 540°C, 580°C for 30 min. One set of samples were subjected to the natural aging heat treatment for 20 days, and 40 days other set samples were further subjected to artificial aging heat treatment where they are heated at 180°C for four hr to obtain the peak aging condition. Electrical conductivity is measured at different situations and correlated with the microstructural features and mechanical properties.

Load bearing capacity of tool pin during friction stir welding

Although friction stir welding (FSW) is now widely used for the welding of aluminum and other soft alloys, premature tool failure limits its application to hard alloys such as steels and titanium alloys. The tool pin, the weakest component of the …

Toward optimum friction stir welding tool shoulder diameter

Currently friction stir welding tools are designed by trial and error. Here we propose and test a criterion for the design of a tool shoulder diameter based on the principle of maximum utilization of supplied torque for traction. The optimum tool …

Strains and strain rates during friction stir welding

Strains experienced by materials during friction stir welding (FSW) are important but scarce in the literature. Here we report the computed strains and strain rates during FSW of AA2524 from a three-dimensional coupled viscoplastic flow and heat …

Torque, power requirement and stir zone geometry in friction stir welding through modeling and experiments

The torque, power requirement and stir zone geometry during friction stir welding of AA2524 aluminum alloy were modeled by solving the equations of conservation of mass, momentum and energy. The model predictions agreed well with the corresponding …