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Melting/Forming/Joining
deforms around the periphery of the tool. For a given travel speed,
materials with a high coefcient of friction will require a lower
rotational speed because the heat generated at the interface will
be greater. The greater heat will cause the base material to soften,
making deformation away from the interface easier, which creates
a larger stir zone without a gross melt layer.
Defects
Defects such as worm holes, surface galling, lack of fusion, scalloping and liquation cracking can occur outside the operating
window. Defects can originate as a result of improper ow or geometry. Geometric defects occur when either the tool geometry
is insufcient to penetrate the entire thickness of the material or
the seam is not properly tracked by the tool during welding. It is
believed that the optimum welding parameters provide conditions
where there is balance between sticking and slipping of the material around the pin. The material produces almost a whipping
ow. Flow-related defects occur when welding is conducted outside
the proper processing window, such as when the welding conditions are either too hot or too cold.
Cold-Processing Defects
Under cold-processing conditions with slip, the resulting defect
is either a surface defect or wormhole. The loss of material on
Shoulder
Pin
FSW tool
Base material
Advancing side
Direction of tool travel
FSW tool
Tool
rotation
direction
Retreating side
FEATURE | Nonferrous
Melting/Forming/Joining
Wormhole
Hot-Processing Defects
During the welding of sheet material in
a lap conguration under hot conditions,
the material in the thermal mechanically affected zone on the retreating side
is forced upwards, causing the thinning
of sheets. A critical total mass of material must move from the front to the rear
of the tool through the extrusion zone to
maintain mass balance and prevent void
formations.
Heat Sources
Localized heating from the shoulder allows for a material that is both in contact
and in close proximity with the pin to
be deformed and transported around it.
There are two main heat sources intrinsic
to FSW:
Friction from the contact between the
tool and the base material
Deformation around the tool
Unlike conventional arc-welding processes, the heat generation cannot be
considered as axis-symmetric. Consideration of both the rotational and translational velocities leads to the denition of
the retreating side (RS) and advancing
side (AS) in a weld. The AS has resultant
vectors from the tool rotation and advancement of the material that point in
opposite directions, and on the RS they
point in the same direction. As expected,
each side would have a different thermal
experience.
The friction condition between the
tool and workpiece interface, along with
the material ow within the weld, dictate
how much heat is produced. Interface
heat is generated by friction, while the
56 February 2012 - IndustrialHeating.com
Inadequate ll of advancing
side avove swirl zone
Faying
surface
remnant
Surface lack of ll
DXZ
Advancing side
LOF
Root ow defect
Excessive indentation
Chip LOF
Wormhole
Scalloping
Welding
direction
Longitudal view
Surface galling
Lack of fusion
Faying
surface
remnant
LOP
Cold
Scalloping
IPM
Lack of penetration
Hot
Advancing
RPM
Fig. 2. Friction-stir welding processing map showing the rotational speed, travel speed, different types of defects that form and their corresponding photographs.
AS
RS
HAZ
TMAZ
SZ
1000 m
Fig. 3. Transverse cross section of FSW on 1-mm-thick AA2024 plate showing the different
regions of the weld etched with Kellers reagent.
Shoulder
penetration
depth
Hook
Bonded width
Sheet
Stir zone width thickness
(t)
Curvature
Hook
height
(v)
Displaced
material width
Fig. 4. Schematic drawing showing the different regions of a friction stir spot weld, which is
a substitute to conventional spot welding processes for materials such as aluminum.