Abstract--Aluminium alloy has gathered wide acceptance in

the fabrication of light weight structures requiring a high

strength to weight ratio. Friction stir welding (FSW) is
widely used for the welding of aluminium. This process uses
a non-consumable tool to generate frictional heat in the
abutting surfaces. Welding input parameters play a very
significant role in determining the quality of a weld joint.
The welding parameters such as tool shoulder diameter,
tool rotational speed, welding speed, axial force play a
major role in deciding the joint strength. In present study
an attempt has been made to join the AA8011 aluminium
alloy by using the conventional milling machine. Friction
stir welding is carried out on the 4mm thick AA8011 plate.
The tensile strength is checked by using the universal
testing machine. Result indicates that the maximum tensile
strength found in the FSW welded joint is 75 % of the
parent metal tensile strength.
Index Terms-- Aluminium alloy, Design of experiments,
Friction Stir Welding, Tensile strength.
I. INTRODUCTION

ompared with many of the fusion welding
. processes, such as metal inert gas welding (MIG),
tungsten inert gas welding (TIG), electron beam welding
(EBW) and laser beam welding (LBW) that are routinely
used for joining aluminium alloys, Friction Stir Welding
(FSW) is an emerging solid state joining process in
which the material that is being welded does not melt
and recast. Friction stir welds will not encounter
problems like porosity, alloy segregation and hot
cracking, and welds are produced with good surface
finish and thus no post weld cleaning is required [1].
FSW was invented at The Welding Institute (TWI), UK
in 1991. It is a continuous, hot shear, process involving
non-consumable rotating tool of harder material than the
substrate material. Fig. 1 explains the working principle
of FSW process. Defect-free welds with good
mechanical properties have been made in a variety of
aluminium alloys, even those previously thought to be
not weldable. Due to the absence of parent metal
melting, the new FSW process is observed to offer
several advantages over fusion welding.


Fig. 1 : Schematic of the friction stir welding process
The formation of defect-free friction stir processed
zone (FSP) regions is affected by the material flow
behaviour under the action of rotating non-consumable
tool [2]. However, the material flow behaviour is
predominantly influenced by the FSW tool geometry and
process parameters. Most of the studies published are
focusing on the effect of FSW parameters and tool
geometry on tensile properties and microstructure
formation. In present study an attempt has been made to
check the effect of various friction stir welding
parameters on the tensile strength of AA8011
aluminium alloy.
II. EXPERIMENTATION
The rolled plates of AA8011 aluminum alloy were cut
and machine to 300mmx150mmx4mm by power
hacksaw cutting and grinding.
TABLE 1
PROCESS PARAMETERS AND THEIR LEVELS
Sr.
No.
Parameters Range
1 Shoulder dia. (D) mm 14 - 22
2 Rotational speed (N) rpm 180 - 2000
3 Welding speed (S) mm/min 20 - 63
4 Axial force (F) N 1000 - 5000

Conventional milling machine (BFW make, universal
knee type UF1) with appropriate fixture developed for
FSW has been utilized for present experimental
investigation. Fig. 2 shows FSW setup.
Influence of Friction Stir Welding Parameters
on Tensile Strength of AA8011 Aluminium
A. K. M. Patel, B. N. D. Ghetiya

and C. S. J. Makvana

A, B, C. Mechanical Engg. Dept., Institute of Technology, Nirma University, Ahmedabad

C

Fig. 2 : Friction stir welding set up
Aluminium plates are located by a slotted base plate of
fixture. It constrains the movement of aluminium plates
against the tool rotation and also provides accurate and
unique position of the plates every time. Aluminium
plates should be fully constrained at all times to prevent
any movement. Clamps provide locking forces to hold
the aluminium plates in place, once they are located. A
totally restrained aluminium plates are able to remain in
static equilibrium to withstand all possible processing
forces or disturbance.
The design of the tool is a critical factor as a good tool
can improve both the quality of the weld and the
maximum possible welding speed. Tool shoulder has
been designed to produce heat to the surface and
subsurface religion of the work piece. Also the shoulder
produces the downward forging action necessary for
weld consolidation. The pin has been designed to disrupt
the faying, or contacting surface of the workpiece, shear
material in front of the tool, and move material behind
the tool. Tool pin length is determined by the workpiece
thickness (4 mm for present study) and the desired
clearance between end of the pin and backing plate. Pin
diameter need to be a large enough to not fracture due to
transverse load but small enough to allow consolidation
of workpiece material behind the tool before the material
cools. Fig 3 shows tool pin geometry and tool
dimensions.
Excessive tool wear changes the tool shape, thus
changing the weld quality and increasing the probability
of weld defects. Non-consumable tool, made of high
carbon, high chromium steel, H-13 was used to fabricate
the joints. Tool material has been purchased under
annealing condition and machined as per tool design and
finally heat treated as per ASTM A-681 to get required
hardness. Tool has been heated at 1010 C for 30 minute
and then air cooled. The initial hardness was 17 HRC
which after heat treatment changed to 44 HRC.
The chemical composition and mechanical properties
of base metal are presented in Table 3 and 4.
TABLE 2
CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF AA8011 ALUMINIUM ALLOY
Fe Si Mn Mg Zn Cu Ti Cr Al
0.74 0.52 0.459 0.277 0.084 0.127 0.016 0.028 Rem.
TABLE 3
PROPERTIES OF AA8011 ALUMINIUM ALLOY
Tensile
Strength
MPa
Density

Kg/m
3

Thermal
conductivity
W/m-k
Melting
point
C
Hardness

HRB
110 2689 237 660.2 60


Fig. 3 : FSW tool pin geometry and dimensions
The rolled plates of 4 mm thickness, AA8011
aluminium alloy, were cut into the required size (300
mm x 150 mm) by power hacksaw cutting and milling.
Square butt joint configuration (300 mm x 300 mm) has
been prepared to fabricate FSW joints. The initial joint
configuration has been obtained by securing the plates in
position using mechanical clamps. As shown in Fig. 4
the direction of welding has been normal to the rolling
direction. Single pass welding procedure has been
followed to fabricate the joints.

Fig. 4 : Scheme of welding with respect to rolling direction and
extraction of tensile
Trial experiments has been conducted to determine the
working range of the parameters. Feasible limits of the
parameters has been chosen in such a way that the
friction stir welded joints should be free from any visible
external defects. The important factors that are
influencing the tensile properties of FSW joints and their
working ranges are presented in Table 1.

Fig. 5 : Dimensions of tensile specimen.
The welded joints have been sliced using a power
hacksaw and then machined to the required dimensions
as shown in Fig. 5. Three tensile specimens has been
fabricated as per the American Society for Testing of
Materials (ASTM E8M-04) standards to evaluate the
tensile strength of the joints. Tensile strength of the FSW
joints has been evaluated by conducting test on universal
testing machine. The test specimen and fractured piece is
shown in Fig.6.


Fig. 6 : Test and fractured specimen

III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The effects of FSW process parameters like tool
shoulder diameter, rotational speed, welding speed and
tool axial force on ultimate tensile strength is studied.
They are presented graphically from the fig. 6-10. From
the graphs, it is found that the tensile strength of FSW
joints is lower than the base metal irrespective of the
operating parameters used to fabricate the joints. The
four operating parameters considered directly affect the
magnitude of frictional heat generated and plastic flow
of material.
1) Effect of tool shoulder diameter:
Material near the top of the Friction Stir Process(FSP)
region, approximately the upper one-third, moves under
the influence of the shoulder rather than the profiles on
the pin. The tool shoulder diameter is having directly
proportional relationship with the heat generation due to
friction. If the shoulder diameter is large, then heat
generation due to friction is also high due to large
contact area and vice versa. In this investigation it has
been observed that the larger tool shoulder diameter (22
mm) lead to wider contact area and resulted in wider
TMAZ region and HAZ region and subsequently the
tensile properties of the joints are deteriorated.

Fig. 7 : Effect of tool shoulder dia.
It has been also observed that the smaller tool shoulder
diameter (14 mm) lead to narrow contact area and
resulted in less frictional heat generation and hence the
weld metal consolidation is not good in the FSP region.
Hence, the shoulder diameter must be optimized. The
four different tool shoulder diameters have been used in
this investigation. The joints fabricated using the tool
with 18 mm shoulder diameter exhibited superior tensile
strength as shown in fig.7.
2) Effect of rotational speed:
Fig. 8 shows the effect of tool rotational speed on
tensile strength. At lower rotational speed (180 rpm)
tensile strength of the FSW joints has been lower. When
the rotational speed has been increased, correspondingly
the tensile strength also increased and reaches a
maximum in range of 1000 to 1400 rpm.

Fig. 8 : Effect of rotational speed
When the rotational speed increased above 1400 rpm,
the tensile strength of the joint decreased.
Macrostructure observations showed that the joints
fabricated at lower rotational speeds (180, 500 rpm)
contained defects like pinhole or crack in FSP region and
resulted in lower tensile properties. On the other hand,
joints fabricated at higher rotational speed (2000 rpm)
contained large size defects and it appeared like tunnel.
As rotational speed increased, the heat input per unit
length of the joint increased, resulting inferior tensile
properties due to rise in temperature, which increases
grain growth. Considerable increase in turbulence, which
destroys the regular flow behaviour available at lower
speed.
3) Effect of welding speed:
Fig. 9 shows the tensile properties of the joints as a
function of welding speed. The tensile strength firstly
increases with increasing with the welding speed 20 to
31.5 mm/min and then dramatically decreases to a
considerably low level owing to the formation of groove
defect which can be seen by macro structure observation.
The maximum tensile strength is found to be 83 MPa
equivalent to 75% that of the base metal. In general
friction stir welding at higher welding speeds results in
short exposure time in the weld area with insufficient
heat and poor plastic flow of the metal and causes some
voids like defects in the joints. It seems that these voids
are formed due to poor consolidation of the metal
interface when the tool travels at higher welding speeds.
The reduced plasticity and rates of diffusion in the
material may have resulted in a weak interface.

Fig. 9 : Effect of welding speed
4) Effect of axial force:

Fig. 10 : Effect of axial force
Fig. 10 shows the effect of axial force on tensile
strength. At lower axial force (1000 N) tensile strength
of the FSW joints has been lower. When the axial force
has been increased the tensile strength also increased and
reached to a maximum at 3000 N. When the axial force
further increased, the tensile strength of the joint
decreased. The heat input and temperature distribution
during friction stir welding has been due to frictional
heat generation between the rotating tool shoulder and
surface of the plate to be welded and depends on
coefficient of friction. Apart from the properties of tool
and plate material, the axial force decides the coefficient
of friction. Hence axial force plays a significant role in
friction stir welding process. Axial force is directly
responsible for the plunge depth of the tool pin in to the
work piece and load characteristics associated with
linear friction stir weld. When the axial force is
relatively low, there has been a tunnel found at the
bottom. While with higher axial force, the weld has been
sound with full penetration. It shows that sufficient axial
force required to form good weld.
IV. TENSILE STRENGTH CALCULATOR
To estimate the tensile strength of friction stir welded
joints for different combinations of process parameters,
Graphical User Interface (GUI) in the form of executable
(exe) file has been developed using Visual Basic. Fig. 11
shows GUI of tensile strength calculator.

Fig. 11 : GUI of Tensile strength calculator for FSW
V. CONCLUSIONS
The tensile strength of the joint increases with increase
in welding speed and travel speed. It reaches maximum
and then start decreases, same effect is also observed by
varying the axial force. Maximum joint tensile strength
is achieved by using 18 mm shoulder diameter. The
maximum tensile strength achieved in the FSW joint is
75% of the parent metal tensile strength.
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properties related to micro structural variation of 6061 Al alloy
joints by friction stir welding. Mater Trans, 45(5), 17001705,
2004.
[3] Lakshminarayanan A and Balasubramanian V. Process
parameters optimization for friction stir welding of RDE-40
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