An Experimental study on the effect of welding parameters and tool pin profile on AA 6061 and AA 7175 Friction stir welded butt joint

Abstract

Friction stir welding (FSW) is a novel solid state welding process for joining metallic alloys and has emerged as an alternative technology used in high strength alloys that are difficult to join with conventional techniques and which avoids bulk melting of the basic material, hot cracking and porosity. The function of FSW process are used in several industries such as aerospace, rail, automotive and marine industries for joining aluminium, magnesium and copper alloy. In aerospace industries most of the component is manufactured with aluminium material by welding process. Aluminium welding cannot be done by conventional process because temper characteristics of material will be changed. To overcome this drawback, friction stir welding process is selected. To investigate the effect of welding parameters and different tool pin profiles over Friction Stir Welding of dissimilar AA 6061 and AA 7175 and also compare single pass friction stir welding and multi pass friction stir welding. The parameters considered were tool rotation speed, welding speed, tool pin profiles, tilt angle and number of passes. Different tool pin profiles are Threaded Triangular, Threaded Cylindrical, Threaded Hexagonal and Threaded Taper pin profiles plays a vital responsibility in deciding the weld quality. This work includes tensile tests, hardness test and impact test.  .