Diffusion in FSW Joints by Inserting the Metallic Foils

S. Gholami Shiri
1)
, A. Sarani
2)
, S.R. Elmi Hosseini
2)*
, G. Roudini
2)
1) School of Materials Science and Engineering, Department of Engineering, Shiraz University, Zand Ave., Shiraz, Iran
2) Department of Materials Science & Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Sistan and Baluchestan, Zahedan, Iran
[Manuscript received May 18, 2012, in revised form April 1, 2013, Available online 11 July 2013]
The aims of this investigation were to study diffusion phenomenon in friction stir welding (FSW) joints and its
influence on the tensile strength of joints. To study diffusion in stir zone, various metallic foils were inserted
between two pure aluminium plates. The thin foils of pure copper, pure zinc, brass and CueZneNi alloy with
the thickness of 250 mm were used as metallic foils. The transversal cross sections of welds were observed
by optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) equipped with an energy dispersive X-ray
spectroscopy (EDS) system. The spot analyses near the metallic foils indicated that diffusion occurs from foils
into the aluminium plates during welding; consequently, the strength of stir zone increases even by 50%.
Besides, the metallic foils could reveal the flow of metal after FSW process.
KEY WORDS: Friction stir welding; Diffusion; Metallic foil; Pure aluminium; Tensile strength
1. Introduction
Aluminium alloys have good weldability, high ratio of
strength-to-weight and resistance to stress corrosion cracking
(SCC). They have several applications in aerospace and auto-
motive industries
[1]
. Friction stir welding (FSW) is a solid-state
welding process that has been proven to be very effective for
joining of some metallic materials such as aluminium, copper,
and magnesium alloys. FSW technique operates below the sol-
idus temperature of the metallic materials being joined; therefore
the melting does not occur during the processing
[2]
. Two pieces
to be welded are brought into contact, placed on a backing plate
and clamped. A cylindrical tool is plunged into the joint and is
forced to travel down in the direction of joint line. The tool
consists of a shoulder and a pin. The shoulder heats the plate by
friction and the pin is inserted into the pieces, which stirs the
material. As the tool moves in the direction of the joint line,
plasticized material is stirred and forged behind the pin trailing
face. Then it cools down to make the solid-state weld
[1,3]
. This
plasticized material is subjected to extrusion by the rotational
and transverse movements of tool pin, which causes to form the
weld nugget
[2]
. Heating is created by a combination of friction
between the pin and workpiece, which is the biggest component
of heating and the deformation of materials induced in the ma-
terial by rotation of the tool
[4,5]
.
In contrast to fusion welding techniques, FSW results in a
much lower distortion, no welding arc, a lower weld nishing
costs, and the lower residual stresses associated with a low heat
input of the processing. This process can prevent from forming
porosities, cracks, radiation and the emission of harmful gases
usually owning to the fusion welding techniques. Also, FSW
permits similar or dissimilar materials to be welded together and
is being successfully used in the aerospace and automobile in-
dustries
[1,2,6e9]
.
Bulk diffusion coefcients for several of the commercially
important alloying elements in aluminium were determined by
various experimental methods, including activation and electron
microprobe analyses. A summary of these data, including those
for self-diffusion, is shown in Fig. 1. Copper, magnesium, sili-
con, and zinc, which are the principal solutes involved in
precipitation-hardening reactions, have relatively high rates of
diffusion in aluminium
[10]
. Although some researches regarding
to the microstructural evolutions
[11e13]
, and mechanical proper-
ties
[14,15]
of the FSW joints have been carried out, the diffusion
in FSW joints containing metallic foils is still unexplored.
2. Experimental
Two pure Al plates were longitudinally butt welded with an
adapted vertical milling machine. The tool, made of H13 steel,
was used to create the joints. It had unthreaded pin. Its shoulder
was concave and was tilted to make compressive force to the
stirred zone. The tool size and the parameters of welding process
are listed in Table 1. Fig. 2 presents the setup schematic used for
*
Corresponding author. Lecturer; Tel.: 98 541 8052903; Fax: 98 541
2447092; E-mail address: srelmihosseini@gmail.com (S.R.E. Hosseini).
1005-0302/$ e see front matter Copyright 2013, The editorial ofce of
Journal of Materials Science & Technology. Published by Elsevier
Limited. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jmst.2013.07.003
Available online at SciVerse ScienceDirect
J. Mater. Sci. Technol., 2013, 29(11), 1091e1095
FSW. A carbon steel as a bottom plate was positioned under the
two metals to be welded. In this study, the thin sheets of different
metallic foils were placed along the longitudinal seam side of the
pure Al workpieces. These metallic foils are pure copper, pure
zinc, brass, and CueZneNi alloy with the thickness of 250 mm.
The chemical composition of brass foil is 66 wt% Cu and 34 wt
% Zn, and CueZneNi alloy is 15 wt% Ni, 66 wt% Cu and 19 wt
% Zn. The schematic of the workpiece and the metallic foil is
shown in Fig. 3.
The welded joints were sliced and then machined to the
required dimensions. In order to evaluate the tensile strength of
the weld and the joint, longitudinal and transverse tensile sam-
ples were prepared respectively according to ASTM E8 standard
(Fig. 4). The surface and edges of samples were rounded and
polished to prevent the stress concentration in the surface. The
tensile experiments were performed with an INSTRON Mod.
4206 machine, at room temperature and with a crosshead speed
of 1 mm/min. The tensile properties of each joint were reported
by three specimens cut from the same joints. The cross-section of
the welds was performed for the metallographic test in planes
perpendicular to the welding direction. Then the metallographic
samples were polished with a diamond paste and etched with the
solution of 10 ml HNO
3
5 ml HCl 0.5 ml HF 10 ml
H
2
O 2 g potassium dichromate in order to identify the spec-
imens weld zone. The welded regions of polished samples were
also examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) equipped
with an energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) system.
3. Results and Discussion
3.1. Observation of material ow
Visualization of material ow in the stir zone was observed by
inserting the different metallic foils between the workpieces. For
example, the material ow of the joint containing the copper foil
has been indicated in Fig. 5. It is admitted that two effects are
responsible for the material movement in the FSW technique.
One effect is the extrusion technique. The plunge force and the
motion of the tool pin propel the material behind the tool. The
other one is the rotation of the tool, which stirs the material
[3]
.
Material transported by these two techniques has very different
thermomechanical histories and properties. The joint strength
depends on the amount of mixing of two weld pieces
[6]
. Li
et al.
[16]
has shown that dynamic recrystallization plays an
important role in the material ow and that for many extreme
deformation at very high strain rates, solid-state ow accom-
modates the process.
From the studies in the FS welds of aluminium alloys, it was
concluded that the differences in the geometry of the tool
(consisting of the design of pin and shoulder and the relative
dimensions of pin and shoulder), the FSW parameters (consist-
ing of the rate of tool rotation and direction, traverse speed,
Fig. 1 Diffusion coefcient for various elements in aluminium
[10]
.
Table 1 Tool size and welding process parameters used in the
experiments
Rotational
speed
(r/min)
Travel speed
(mm/min)
Tool
tilt
Pin diameter
(mm)
Shoulder
diameter
(mm)
1600 25 2.5

5 (root), 4 (head) 20
Fig. 2 Setup schematic used for FSW process in this study.
Fig. 3 Schematic of the workpieces and metallic foil.
Fig. 4 (a) Longitudinal tensile and (b) the transverse tensile specimen
of welded joints.
1092 S.G. Shiri et al.: J. Mater. Sci. Technol., 2013, 29(11), 1091e1095
plunge depth, tilt angle), base material ow stress behaviour and
temperature as well as the interaction between the workpiece and
the tool with the various features caused the signicant changes
in the ow path of material during welding as well as in the
microstructure in the weld nugget
[6e9]
. Several experimental and
numerical ow studies claried the presence of a rotational zone
near the pin
[5,17]
.
The ow of plasticized material occurs in the vicinity or
around the tool, dragging the bulk of the stirred material to a nal
position behind its original position. In the wake of the weld,
behind the travelling tool, material deposition takes place layer-
by-layer, resulting in the formation of a zone with a banded
structure commonly referred to as the nugget. With regard to the
inuence of the tool in the FSW ow eld, two different modes
of tool related ows are frequently mentioned in literature:
shoulder-driven ow and pin-driven ow
[7]
. The shape and the
size on this rotating layer depend on the properties of the ma-
terial, the welding parameters and the tool geometry
[18]
.
During the welding process, the foils are unable to sustain
such very large elongations and tears apart into the small elon-
gated particles as shown in Fig. 5. These pieces are much smaller
than other relevant dimensions in the welding technique and
provide good markers to show the movement of the material.
Also, they are behind the tool and more or less far from the initial
position of the foil in the direction of joint line. The copper foils
are found in the various places in the rotational zone with the
dark arc shape.
3.2. Analysis of diffusion in stir zone
During the welding of aluminium, the temperature of stir zone
near the rotating pin never reaches the melting point
[19]
, but
increases and consequently causes to diffuse the elements from
foils into the aluminium sheet. Fig. 6(aed) shows that the joints
maps consist of the various foils. To investigate the diffusion
phenomenon during FSW technique, the chemical composition
of the zone near the metallic foils was analysed by SEM
equipped with an EDS system. In these gures, A, B, C & D
points indicate the zones near the foils, where spot analysis was
performed. The light regions are metallic foils and the dark re-
gions are aluminium. The results of spot analyses in A, B, C and
D points illustrated in Fig. 7(aed). Fig. 7(a) indicates the copper
and zinc within the brass foil penetrate into the Al during
welding. Fig. 7(b and d) show the copper and zinc diffuse from
the foils into Al, respectively. Fig. 7(c) indicates the diffusion of
nickel, copper and zinc from foil into the base metal during FSW
process.
Fig. 5 Material ow seen in the weld zone of aluminium and copper
foil. Dark regions are copper foil and light regions are
aluminium.
Fig. 6 Joints map containing (a) brass, (b) copper, (c) CueZneNi alloy and (d) zinc foils.
S.G. Shiri et al.: J. Mater. Sci. Technol., 2013, 29(11), 1091e1095 1093
F
i
g
.
7
S
p
o
t
a
n
a
l
y
s
e
s
i
n
(
a
)
A
,
(
b
)
B
,
(
c
)
C
a
n
d
(
d
)
D
p
o
i
n
t
s
o
f
F
i
g
.
6
(
a
e
d
)
.
1094 S.G. Shiri et al.: J. Mater. Sci. Technol., 2013, 29(11), 1091e1095
3.3. Tensile strength
To study the effect of diffusion in stir zone on the mechanical
properties of the joints and welds, the ultimate strengths of
transverse and longitudinal specimens of joints containing
various metallic foils were investigated, as shown in Fig. 8(a and
b), respectively. Fig. 8(a) indicates that the joints containing the
foils which occur between the workpieces, are accurate. Fig. 8(b)
shows that the tensile strength of joint without the metallic foil is
lower than the other joints. On the other hand, during the
welding of plates in the presence of metallic foils, which are
dissimilar with the Al, the diffusion happens from the foils into
the Al plates. Then, a solid-solution zone forms near the metallic
foils in the stir zone of joints. Therefore, the strength of joints
increases in comparison with that of the joint just between two
Al plates. Fig. 8(b) also shows that the tensile strength of joint
having CueZneNi foil is higher than that of the joint having
CueZn foil and the tensile strength of joint having CueZn foil is
higher than that of the joint having Zn and Cu foils. These refer
to the difference between the strength of solid-solution zones,
which form near the foils in the stir zones. Indeed, the solid-
solution zone near the CueZneNi foil contains the copper,
zinc, nickel and aluminium, whereas the solid-solution zone near
the brass foil contains the copper, zinc and aluminium. In other
words, the solid-solution zone in CueZneNi joint has higher
strength than the joint having brass foil. Similar to this reason,
the strength of solid-solution zone in the brass joint is higher
than that of the joints containing the zinc or copper foils.
4. Conclusions
(1) To clarify the movement of material in FSW joints, the
different metallic foils were used. The foils provide good
markers for material movement.
(2) The friction between the shoulder and workpiece and
deformation of material in the nugget zone result in the
production of heating in FSW process. The produced
heating caused diffusion of elements from foils into the
plates.
(3) The diffusion phenomenon in stir zone formed the solid-
solution in this region, then caused the tensile strength of
joints to be increased even by 50%.
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S.G. Shiri et al.: J. Mater. Sci. Technol., 2013, 29(11), 1091e1095 1095