Friction stir welding of aluminium alloys

P L Threadgill1, A J Leonard2, H R Shercliff3 and P J Withers*4

TWI, Granta Park, Great Abington CB21 6AL, UK
BP International, Compass Point, 79-87 Kingston Rd, Staines, Middx TW18 1DY, UK
3
Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1PZ, UK
4
School of Materials, University of Manchester, Grosvenor Street, Manchester M1 7HS, UK
1
2

*Corresponding author, email philip.withers@man.ac.uk

Other terms have been used in the literature, namely 'shear side' and 'flow side', but these are
ambiguous and have been discouraged.[4]
Paper presented at International Materials Reviews, vol.54. no.2. March 2009. pp. 49-93.
The comprehensive body of knowledge that has built up with respect to the friction stir welding (FSW)
of aluminium alloys since the technique was invented in 1991 is reviewed. The basic principles of FSW
are described, including thermal history and metal flow, before discussing how process parameters
affect the weld microstructure and the likelihood of entraining defects. After introducing the
characteristic macroscopic features, the microstructural development and related distribution of
hardness are reviewed in some detail for the two classes of wrought aluminium alloy (non-heattreatable and heat-treatable). Finally, the range of mechanical properties that can be achieved is
discussed, including consideration of residual stress, fracture, fatigue and corrosion. It is
demonstrated that FSW of aluminium is becoming an increasingly mature technology with numerous
commercial applications. In spite of this, much remains to be learned about the process and
opportunities for further research and development are identified.
Keywords: Friction stir welding, Aluminium alloys, Microstructure evolution, Plastic flow, Residual
stress, Mechanical properties, Thermomechanically affected zone.

Introduction
Historical background and principles
Radically new joining processes do not come along very often: friction stir welding (FSW) was one
such event, being invented by the TWI in 1991. [1,2] Since then research and development in FSW and
associated technologies has mushroomed, with many companies, research institutes and universities
investing heavily in the process and international conference series dedicated to it's study. By the end
of 2007, TWI had issued 200 licences for use of the process, and 1900 patent applications had been
filed relating to FSW.[3] The number of research papers has also grown exponentially.
In essence, FSW is very simple, although a brief consideration of the process reveals many subtleties.
The principal features are shown in Fig.1. A rotating tool is pressed against the surface of two abutting
or overlapping plates. The side of the weld for which the rotating tool moves in the same direction as
the traversing direction, is commonly known as the 'advancing side'; the other side, where tool
rotation opposes the traversing direction, is known as the 'retreating side' . An important feature of
the tool is a probe (pin) which protrudes from the base of the tool (the shoulder), and is of a length
only marginally less than the thickness of the plate. Frictional heat is generated, principally due to the
high normal pressure and shearing action of the shoulder. Friction stir welding can be thought of as a
process of constrained extrusion under the action of the tool. The frictional heating causes a softened
zone of material to form around the probe. This softened material cannot escape as it is constrained
by the tool shoulder. As the tool is traversed along the joint line, material is swept around the tool
probe between the retreating side of the tool (where the local motion due to rotation opposes the
forward motion) and the surrounding undeformed material. The extruded material is deposited to form
a solid phase joint behind the tool. The process is by definition asymmetrical, as most of the deformed
material is extruded past the retreating side of the tool. The process generates very high strains and

strain rates, both of which are substantially higher than found in other solid state metalworking
processes (extrusion, rolling, forging, etc.).

Fig.1. Schematic diagram of FSW process

Friction stir welding is therefore both a deformation and a thermal process, even though there is no
bulk fusion. The maximum temperature reached is a matter of some debate. Thermocouple
measurements during FSW of aluminium alloys suggest that, in general, the temperature stays below
500C.[5-7] These values must be treated with some care, as the position of the thermocouple in the
rapidly moving nugget can be difficult to ascertain. Microstructural evidence seems to corroborate the
thermocouple based conclusion that unless extreme processing parameters are chosen, the maximum
temperature usually lies between 425 and 500C. [6,8] It has been suggested that the temperature of
the material in contact with the pin may reach the solidus temperature, [9] although experimental
validation is difficult due to the intense deformation at the interface. There is evidence of incipient
melting for some aluminium alloys (e.g. 7010) for fast weld speeds.[10-12] It can also be argued that the
peak temperature is inherently self-limiting. The workpiece flow stress will fall rapidly as the solidus is
approached, so that heating of the nugget at the tool/workpiece interface limits the available heat
generation by reducing the torque.[13,14]
To date, the predominant focus of FSW has been for welding aluminium alloys, although the process
has been well developed for both copper alloys [15-21] and magnesium alloys.[22-29] Work is under way to
develop the process for materials such as titanium alloys, [30-34] steels,[35-43] nickel alloys[44-46] and even
molybdenum.[47] The welding process in these materials takes place at considerably higher
temperatures, and although the feasibility of the process has been demonstrated, further work is
needed to improve the performance and longevity of tool materials. In addition considerable work has
focused on using FSW to join dissimilar aluminium alloys. [48-61] Furthermore the steady push to
lightweight vehicles has largely been responsible for research in joining aluminium alloys to other
metals, including aluminium to magnesium,[62-65] aluminium to metal matrix composites,[66] aluminium
to steel[67-69] and aluminium to copper.[70-73]
Coverage of the present review is confined to the FSW of aluminium alloys. A summary of the AWS
designations for wrought Al alloy groups and AWS basic temper designations applicable to heattreatable Al alloys is contained withinTable 1. Since FSW is a solid state process, it can be used to join
all common aluminium alloys, including the 2xxx, 7xxx and 8xxx series which are normally challenging
or impractical to weld by fusion processes. A key distinction is between non-heat-treatable and heattreatable alloy series. In work hardened alloys (e.g. 5xxx), the heat from the friction welding process
will allow thermal recovery and recrystallisation of dislocation substructures, although this is partly

countered in the intensely deformed region where new dislocation structures are generated. In age
hardened alloys, the weld will normally be heated well above the dissolution temperature of the initial
precipitates, enabling dissolution, reprecipitation and overaging to occur. Friction stir welded
aluminium alloys can therefore contain microstructures covering the entire spectrum of normal
tempers.
Table 1 AWS designations for wrought Al alloy groups and basic temper designations
applicable to heat-treatable Al alloys

Wrought alloy groups

Basic temper designations

1xx
Unalloyed 99% Al
F As fabricated
x
Copper principal alloying
element: gives substantial
2xx increases in strength, permits
Annealed: there may be a suffix to
O
x
precipitation hardening,
indicate the specific heat treatment.
reduces corrosion resistance,
ductility and weldability
Strain hardened (cold worked): it is
Manganese: increases strength
always followed by two or more digits
3xx through solid solution
H to signify the amount of cold work
x
strengthening and improves
and any heat treatments that have
work hardening
been carried out
Solution heat treated: applied to
alloys that precipitation harden at
Silicon: increases strength and
room temperature (natural aging)
4xx ductility, in combination with
W after a solution heat treatment. The
x
magnesium produces
designation is followed by a time
precipitation hardening
indicating the natural aging
period, e.g. W 1 h
5xx Magnesium: increases
T Thermally aged:
x
strength through solid solution
T1: cooled and naturally aged
strengthening and improves
T2: cooled, cold worked and naturally
work hardening ability
aged
T3: solution heat treated, cold worked
and naturally aged
T4: solution heat treated and
naturally aged
T5: cooled and artificially aged
T6: solution heat treated and
artificially aged
T7: solution heat treated and
overaged or stabilised
T8: solution heat treated, cold worked
and artificially aged

T9: solution heat treated, artificially

aged and cold worked
6xx
Magnesium-silicon
x
Zinc-magnesium: substantially
7xx increases strength, enables
x
precipitation hardening, can
cause stress corrosion
Other elements - Li, for
example, substantially
8xx increases strength and Young's
x
modulus, provides
precipitation hardening,
decreases density
Since its inception, many papers and articles have been published on FSW of aluminium alloys, many
of them dealing with microstructure and properties. Recently there have been excellent general
reviews of FSW covering a wide range of materials by Mishra and Ma, [74] which also includes friction
stir processing, and by Nandan et al.,[75] which concentrates on the heat generation, heat transfer and
tool/material flow interactions of FSW. A recent ASM speciality handbook also covers FSW and friction
stir processing.[76] Nevertheless, no critical and comprehensive review focusing specifically on
aluminium FSW is available in the public domain. It is therefore considered timely to correct this
omission. The present review draws on a wide selection of published data to summarise current
understanding of the complex relationship between welding parameters, microstructure and properties
for FSW of many aluminium alloys. Process modelling of FSW has evolved in parallel with empirical
process development, and provides physical insight into all of these relationships. Since FSW
modelling has been reviewed elsewhere,[77,78] this aspect is not explicitly covered in the present review,
except where modelling helps to interpret and complement the experimental observations, or to clarify
issues debated in the literature.

Advantages/disadvantages of FSW for aluminium joining

The advantages of FSW for welding aluminium can be summarised as follows:
1.

as a solid state process it can be applied to all the major aluminium alloys and avoids
problems of hot cracking, porosity, element loss, etc. common to aluminium fusion welding
processes

2.

as a mechanised process (Fig.2a), FSW does not rely on specialised welding skills; indeed
manual intervention is seldom required

3.

no shielding gas or filler wire is required for aluminium alloys

4.

the process is remarkably tolerant to poor quality edge preparation: gaps of up to 20% of
plate thickness can be tolerated, although this leads inevitably to a reduction in local section
thickness since no filler is added

5.

the absence of fusion removes much of the thermal contraction associated with solidification
and cooling, leading to significant reductions in distortion; however, it is not a zero distortion
technique[79]

6.

it is very flexible, being applied to joining in one, two and three dimensions, being applicable
to butt, lap and spot weld geometries; welding can be conducted in any position

7.

excellent mechanical properties, competing strongly with welds made by other processes (see
the section on 'Comparison with other joining processes')

8.

workplace friendly: there are no ulraviolet or electromagnetic radiation hazards as the absence
of an arc removes these hazards from the process; the process is no noisier than a milling
machine of similar power, and generates virtually zero spatter, fume and other pollutants

9.

the energy required at the weld for FSW lies between laser welding (which requires less
energy) and metal inert gas (MIG) welding (which typically needs more)*

10.

high welding speeds and joint completion rates: in single pass welds in thinner materials
(down to 0?5 mm thickness), FSW competes on reasonable terms with fusion processes in terms
of welding speed; in thicker materials, FSW can be accomplished in a single pass (e.g. the 50
mm tool in Fig.2d), whereas other processes need multiple passes. This leads to higher joint
completion rates for FSW, even though the welding speeds may be lower. Thick plates can also be
joined by FSW on either side[43,80]

11.

various mechanical and thermal tensioning strategies can be applied during welding to
engineer the state of residual stress in the weld (see the section on 'Residual stress control').
*Note that a distinction is needed between energy required to make the weld and the total energy
required to operate the process. The latter depends very much on the specific equipment used, and
comparisons are difficult. However, it would be expected that the total energy requirement for FSW
would be greater than MIG, but less than laser for single pass welds of the same thickness.
There are of course disadvantages to FSW; indeed, some of the advantages listed above can be
viewed in a less positive light in certain circumstances. For example, the absence of a filler wire means
that the process cannot easily be used for making fillet welds. Similarly, the fully mechanised nature of
the process prevents its use for applications where access or complex weld shape is best suited to a
manual process. The presence of a hole at the end of the weld from which the probe was withdrawn is
often quoted as a disadvantage. In practice, this has seldom been a significant problem, as there are
many possible solutions, which have been considered elsewhere. [81,82] The workpiece also needs to be
restrained in well designed support tooling (Fig.2a), both to react to the forces applied, and to prevent
the probe from pushing the workpiece materials apart. Although the process may reduce the strength
of aluminium alloys, this can be compensated for if necessary by appropriate design of the joint, for
example by locally increasing the thickness, but in most cases no changes are made. Process
economics are generally considered favourable, but specific published data are lacking. However, it is
known that the process drastically reduces weld preparation costs, skilled welder requirements and
repair rates. Efficient power consumption is dependent on matching the size of machine being used to
the size of weld being made, although this is not always a practical option.

Fig.2. a) commercial scale FSW machine designed to weld underground train bodies.
Workpiece is held by two hydraulic clamps (one is obscured) between which welding head
passes from right to left; head has just completed furthermost of three FSWs shown;

b) typical welding head as it is removed from the plate;

c) 25mm shoulder (8mm pin) diameter Triflute MX tool - it is possible to use this tool with
zero tilt angle;
d) a 50mm shoulder diameter (50mm pin) Triflat tool designed specifically for welding
thicker sections

Applications
Commercial applications have been reported across many industries, and some selected examples are
shown below which illustrate the widening appeal of the process. This list is representative rather than
exhaustive, and it should be emphasised that new applications are appearing all the time. It should be
noted that FSW does not restrict the operating temperature range of aluminium alloys, with
applications ranging from cryogenic temperatures (e.g. liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen rocket fuel
tanks) to mildly elevated temperatures (e.g. heat exchangers in heating systems). Most FSWs used in
production are butt welds, although lap welds and friction stir spot welds are also being applied with
increasing frequency.
Marine
It is believed that the first commercial application of FSW was the joining of 6xxx series alloy
extrusions for use in fish freezing plants for fishing vessels. [83] There have been numerous applications
of the process for joining 6xxx extrusions for incorporation in bulkheads and decks in various high
speed aluminium vessels, and in large steel cruise ships which now often have lightweight aluminium
superstructures.[84] In such applications, the FSW panels are very flat due to the low distortion, and
are cut up and welded into larger structures, usually by MIG welding. Friction stir welding has been
used extensively in the aluminium superstructures of cruise ships such as the 'Seven Seas Navigator'
which contain many kilometres of friction stir welds, mostly in 6xxx grade extrusions. The world's
largest aluminium vessel, the Japanese fast ferry 'Ogasawara', launched in 2004, makes extensive use
of FSW in its superstructure.[85]
Aerospace
The first major application was the use of the process to replace fusion welding in fuel tanks for
unmanned Delta II and later Delta IV rockets.[86-88] The manufacturer (Boeing) has reported virtually
zero defect incidence, and significant cost savings over the previous variable polarity plasma arc
(VPPA) process. The process has also been adopted for the large fuel tank for the Space Shuttle. [89-91]
Almost all the major airframe manufacturers are investigating the use of FSW (alongside other welding
processes such as laser welding) to replace many of the rivets in current structures. The first aircraft
to make extensive use of FSW in its airframe, the Eclipse 500 business jet, has recently completed
certification and is now in production.[92] In this aircraft, over 7300 fasteners (approximately 60% of
the total) are replaced by 263 friction stir welds.
Rail
High speed aluminium railcars such as the Japanese Shinkansen are normally built from complex
double skin extrusions in 6xxx alloys.[93] Since the welds which join these are long (up to 25m) and
straight, FSW is an ideal process, and the very low distortion is cited as a major benefit [94,95] (see
also Fig.2a).
Automotive
There are few long straight welds in road vehicles, and so adoption of FSW has primarily been for
components such as suspension parts, wheels, seat components, crash boxes, etc. where several
leading companies are already using the process in production. The needs of the automotive sector

have driven the development of robotic FSW, to cope with the complex shapes and high volume/low
cost culture of this market. Significant interest is now being shown in friction stir spot welding, where
the linear translation of the tool is either very small or zero. Friction stir spot welding is rapidly gaining
acceptance as an efficient method of joining aluminium sheet, and is already in production, for
example on the Mazda Rx-8 sports car, where it is used on the aluminium bonnet and rear doors.
[96]
Friction stir welding is also being developed for lightweight armoured vehicles, where the ability of
the process to weld material of around 25-40mm thickness in one pass is being exploited. [97,98]
Process variants
In the past five years, two variants have emerged as significant technologies in their own right,
namely friction stir processing[74,99-102] and friction stir spot welding.[103-105] Mishra et al.,[101] Mahoney et
al.[106] and Charit et al.[107] have demonstrated the capability of the former to produce fine scale
microstructures in superplastic 7xxx alloys, greater than 5mm thick. Similar results have also been
demonstrated in an Al-Li-Cu alloy[108] and in commercial purity aluminium alloy 1050. [109] The
technique has also been demonstrated as effective for homogenising powder metallurgy processed
alloys.[102,110] The ability to process aluminium alloys in this manner raises a range of possible
applications for friction stir processing. These include tailoring microstructures for subsequent deep
drawing and superplastic forming operations, and the ability to refine locally the microstructure of
castings (for example, around stress concentrations, where a superior wrought microstructure would
be preferable). Friction stir processing is not considered further in the present review.

Friction stir welding process

Flow mechanisms and tool design
The metal flow and heat generation in the softened material around the tool are fundamental to the
friction stir process. Material deformation generates and redistributes heat, producing the temperature
field in the weld. But since the material flow stress is temperature and strain rate sensitive, the
distribution of heat is itself governed by the deformation and temperature fields. In fact their control
lies at the core of almost all aspects of FSW, for example, the optimisation of process speeds and
machine loading, the avoidance of macroscopic defects, the evolution of the microstructure, and the
resulting weld properties.
As noted above, almost all the material in the weld is extruded between the rotating pin on the
retreating side and the surrounding material which is too cold and too lightly stressed to deform
(see Fig.1). In its simplest form, this essential flow mechanism can be illustrated by two-dimensional
simulations depicting streamlines round a rotating tool placed in a steady flow of material. Figure
3a shows streamlines past a cylindrical tool, redicted by computational fluid dynamics (CFD). [111] A
longitudinal weld seam is formed behind the advancing edge of the tool where the two flows come
together. Further modelling studies have investigated how this two-dimensional flow is perturbed by:
1.
2.

the addition of tool features such as flats and flutes

changes in the contact conditions between tool and workpiece, from sticking friction to slipping
at a lower interfacial shear stress.
Predicted streamlines round a fluted tool are shown in Fig.3b and c.[112] Complete sticking generates a
dead metal zone round the tool, whereas the flow interacts closely with the tool features when slipping
takes place. Another characteristic of the process - a line initially perpendicular to the welding
direction is swept into a backwards 'bulge' in the wake of the tool - can also be seen in Fig.3b and c.
Marker experiments[113] have confirmed this behaviour (Fig.3d). One way of quantifying the mixing
effect of the tool is the ratio of the swept volume to the pin volume. [114]For 25mm thick plates this has
found to be 11 : 1 for a cylindrical pin, 18 : 1 for the Whorl and 26 : 1 for the MX-Triflute pin
(see Fig.2c), each having similar root diameters and lengths [114] with the Triflute giving the more
parallel sided weld zone. Further refinements include the Trivex tool [115] which was designed to reduce
the down and traverse forces required and the Triflat tool for thicker section materials (Fig.2d).

Fig.3. a) typical generic flow path of plate material round clockwise rotating pin in FSW,
taken from two-dimensional CFD model with cylindrical tool moving from left to right (after
Seidel and Reynolds),[111]
b, c) effect of interfacial boundary conditions (b stick; c slip) on predicted flow from twodimensional CFD model with profiled tool (after Colegrove and Shercliff): [112] change in
thickness of streamlines indicates final location of points initially forming straight line
transverse to weld line (analagous to Cu foil in d) and
d) metallographic marker experiment using transverse copper foil, illustrating flow induced
by pin (after Reynolds) [113]
Experience has shown that it is advantageous to develop a vertical component to the flow of material,
and most tools therefore contain threads, helical flutes, or similar features to force material adjacent
to the pin to flow away from the shoulder. Further variants have emerged as the process matures,
such as tools in which the pin and shoulder rotate independently (including non-rotating shoulders),
[33]
retractable pin tooling,[94] as well as a bobbin tool with a shoulder on both ends of a pin of length
equal to the plate thickness.[116] Tool design has been reviewed in detail by Fuller [117] and Dubourg and
Dacheux.[118]
The capture of three-dimensional flow greatly complicates the modelling challenge. [78,119] This is not
simply because of the geometric complexity, but also because of the inherent sensitivity in the flow
response to the interfacial conditions and the temperature and strain rate sensitivity of the material
flow stress. A further feature of the flow that is not captured by current models is the formation of a
stable void immediately behind the tool (see the section on 'Formation of voids'). This has been
identified by 'stop-action' experiments, in which the traverse is abruptly arrested, with tool extraction
being synchronised with rotation to preserve the material in contact with tool features. An early
example of this technique is shown in Fig.4.[120] The threads on the leading edge were full and left
intact, while on the trailing edge the upper threads are incomplete. The conditions that lead to
formation of this void, and whether it has any relevance in producing a sound void free joint, remain
open research questions.

Fig.4. Longitudinal vertical section in travel direction after synchronised pin retraction,
showing trailing void on left hand side (after Colligan) [120]

Heat generation and process operating regimes

Friction stir welding differs from competing processes such as arc and laser welding, since these use
an external heat source of specified power, whereas in FSW the joining process itself generates the
heat. The heat input is therefore a complex function of the process variables (traverse and rotation
speeds, and down force), the alloy being welded, and the tool design. The effect of tool rotation and
traverse speed on the heat input per second and per mm are shown inFig.5a and b respectively.
[53]
Analytical estimates of heat input have assumed sliding Coulomb friction at the tool/workpiece
interface with a constant coefficient of friction, or sticking friction using an estimate of the limiting
shear yield stress, or have inferred contact conditions and/or heat input from measurements of
machine torque.[77,78,121-127] Thermocouple measurements coupled to heat flow analysis also provide a
means to infer net power inputs. However, Peel et al.[53] found no simple correlation between the
temperature and the input power or heat. Although the heat input is commonly considered in fusion
welding, it is a poor indicator of the temperature of the material surrounding an FSW tool, at least for
the joining of thin plates of aluminium. It is likely that when the traverse speed is reduced, much of
the additional heat is conducted into the backing plate, as evidenced by the observed correlation
between the heat input and the backing plate temperature [53] as well as through the tool. The down
force in FSW provides intimate thermal contact between workpiece and backing plate, but this contact
evolves with position during the welding process, requiring complex calibration. [78,127-129] The growing
recognition of the importance and complexity of heat input has lead to the routine instrumentation of
welding equipment, with spindle rotation speed and torque measurements now providing detailed
power data.

Fig.5. Rate of heat input a per millimetre of weld line and b per second for like to like and
AA5083/AA6082 welds [53]
Heat is produced primarily by viscous dissipation in the workpiece material close to the tool, driven by
high shear stresses at the tool/workpiece interface. The temperature and normal contact stresses vary
widely over the tool, so it is unlikely that a single contact condition will be valid. Material at the
interface may stick or it may slip, or there may be a combination of the two. As discussed above, local
melting may occur as peak temperatures reach the solidus temperature. There may be then be
oscillating stick slip behaviour, as local melting rapidly reduces the shear stress, leading to a steep
drop in local heat input and temperature, and self-stabilising behaviour. Process modelling using CFD
has been used to explore the sensitivities of the heat generation, tool forces and size of deformation
zone as a function of tool design and process conditions. [78] Recently the heat input has been
calculated directly from the hot deformation constitutive response of the alloy, using a fully coupled
deformation and heat flow model.[14, 130] This approach is currently limited by the quality of the
constitutive data, particularly near the solidus, but has the potential to reveal the deformation regime
that corresponds to the production of sound welds with least machine load for any particular alloy. For
example, Fig.6 shows the predicted variation of power generation, peak temperature and traverse
force with rotation speed. Note that the power and peak temperature saturate as the interface
temperature and heat generation are limited by rapid material softening, while the minimum force
required is predicted to occur at an intermediate rotation speed. This result correlates with very early
Russian work on rotary friction welding by Vill,[131]which shows that the time to complete a rotary
friction weld goes through a minimum as the rotation speed is increased. The effect has been
confirmed experimentally by TWI.[132].

Fig.6. Schematic illustration of variations, predicted by CFD, of heat generation, peak

temperatures and traversing force with rotation speed for FSW of 2024 aluminium alloy
(after Shercliff and Colegrove) [78]
For a given alloy and plate thickness, with a particular tool, the operator's remaining process variables
are down force, tool tilt angle, tool plunge, rotation speed and traverse speed. Down force is only a
preset variable when in force control, and plunge depth is only a preset in position control. Empirical
trials invariably explore a matrix of these variables, thereby defining the process window that
produces sound welds without tool breakage or macroscopic defects. Figure 7 shows the relationship
between the welding parameters and the FSW process window for an aluminium die casting alloy.
[133]
With increasing tool down force the process window is enlarged mainly towards lower rotation
speeds and higher welding (traverse) speeds. This pattern is broadly typical of aluminium alloys
generally. The process operating window is commonly described as being limited by 'hot welds' and
'cold welds' - the former associated with high rotation and low traverse speeds, leading to excessive
flash production, the latter with low rotation and high traverse speeds, leading to tool breakages. The
nature of the defects associated with unsound welds is discussed further below.

Fig.7. Range of optimum FSW conditions for various tool plunge down forces for 4 mm thick
ADC12 Al-Si casting alloy welded using 15 mm shoulder, 5 mm diameter, 39 mm long
threaded pin:[133] flash style flaws were associated with excessive heat input, whereas
tunnel style voids (Fig.11) were associated with insufficient heat input and abnormal
stirring

Macroscopic weld features

Definition of macroscopic weld zones
The first attempt at classifying FSW microstructures was made by Threadgill. [134] This work was
focused solely on aluminium alloys, and was limited to features distinguishable by light microscopy.
However, work on other metallic materials has demonstrated that the behaviour of aluminium alloys is
not typical of most metals and alloys, and this initial classification was inadequate. Consequently, a
revised set of terms was suggested [135] and then subsequently revised[4] and adopted in the American
Welding Society Standard D173M.[136] These microstructural terms are illustrated in Fig.8, and are
defined below along with alternative terms commonly found in the literature:
1.

unaffected material or parent metal: material remote from the weld, which has not deformed
and which, although it may have experienced a thermal cycle from the weld, is not affected by
heat in terms of detectable changes in microstructure or properties
2.
heat affected zone (HAZ): the region close enough to the weld for the weld thermal cycle to
have modified the microstructure and/or properties, but no apparent plastic deformation is
detected by light microscopy although it is recognised that some plastic deformation will have
occurred, as is typically the case in any weld HAZ (some researchers have preferred the term
'thermally affected zone'; however, by analogy with other welding processes, there is little
justification for a distinct terminology for friction stir welds where the term HAZ is well
understood)
3.
thermomechanically affected zone (TMAZ): in this region, the material has been plastically
deformed by the FSW tool, and heat from the processing has also affected the material. In the
case of aluminium, it is possible to generate considerable plastic strain without recrystallisation in
this region, and there is generally a distinct boundary, at least at a macroscopic level, between
the recrystallised and deformed zones of the TMAZ. (The recrystallised region is often called the
'nugget', which is a descriptive term, though not very scientific. Terms such as 'dynamically
recrystallised region' have been suggested[136] and used extensively in the literature, but the term
nugget remains widely used and understood).
When presenting micrographs it is also conventional to show the advancing side of welds on the right
and this convention is used here except where specific mention is made in the figure caption.

Fig.8. Microstructural zone classification in a friction stir weld in Al 2024 alloy (A: parent
material, unaffected by process; B: HAZ, thermally affected but with no visible plastic
deformation; C: TMAZ, affected by heat and plastic deformation)

Mixing across dissimilar welds

Friction stir welding has been used with notable success to join dissimilar aluminium alloys in a
number of configurations (for references, see the introductory section). It would be reasonable to
assume that a process with so much shear strain would result in very effective mixing of the alloys,
but experience has shown this is seldom the case. The 'handedness' of the weld is an important
factor, i.e. which alloy is placed on the advancing side in a dissimilar combination. [53] Both the heat
generation and appearance of the weld cross-section change significantly when the weld handedness
is reversed, for the same rotation and traverse speed. Figure 9 shows macrographs of the stir zone in
the dissimilar 6082/5083 welds produced using a range of rotation speeds, with AA6082 on the
retreating and advancing side respectively. Changing the traverse and rotation speeds can have a
significant effect on the flow of material within the stir zone. Generally speaking, the extent of mixing

and interface disruption increases as the rotation speed is increased, or the traverse rate is decreased.
[53]
Unsurprisingly the rotation speed was found to have a significantly greater impact than the
traverse speed. For a given combination of weld parameters, the welds produced with AA6082 on the
advancing side (Fig.9b) exhibited a significantly lower level of mixing in the stir zone than those with
the materials reversed. This is in contrast to the results of Larsson et al.,[49] but corroborates those
obtained by Tanaka and Kunagi.[50] Further examples are shown in Fig.10, which shows examples of
Al-Mg and Al-Si castings welded to 5xxx and 6xxx series plates respectively. The alternating bands of
material originating from the casting and the plate material are clearly seen. It has been suggested
that the distance in the welding direction between dissimilar bands corresponds with the pitch distance
(the travel speed divided by the tool rotations per second). [137]

Fig.9. Macrographs showing stir zone/TMAZ of 6082/5083 dissimilar welds with a 6082 on
retreating side (left side lighter);
b) 6082 on advancing side (right side lighter) for welds made at traverse speed of 200 mm
min21 and various rotation speeds (dotted lines on 560 rev min21 welds show approximate
size and position of 6 mm dia. pin)53
a) AA6082 on retreating side (left side lighter);
b) 6082 on advancing side (right side lighter)

Fig.10. Macrosections of friction stir welds

a) Al-Mg-Fe casting (CC601-T6) to 5484-T34 alloy;
b) LM6 Al-Si-Mg casting to 60682-T651 alloy

Flaws in friction stir welds

Flaws arise in most materials joining processes. For example, when arc welding aluminium alloys, weld
metal porosity[138] and, depending on the particular alloy, weld metal solidification cracking and HAZ
liquation cracking[139]are among the most common flaw types. The occurrence of such problems has
contributed to the widely held view that some aluminium alloys, in particular some of the high
strength 2xxx and 7xxx series alloys, are difficult, or indeed impossible, to fusion weld successfully.
Being a solid state joining process, FSW obviates the problems of porosity and hot cracking. In this
respect it is worthwhile to make a distinction between flaws and defects, although the two terms are
often used interchangeably within the literature. The usual distinction is that a flaw or imperfection is
a feature that one would prefer not to be in the weld, but it may or may not compromise the integrity
of the weld. If, after evaluation, the flaw is deemed unacceptable, then it becomes a defect. If it does
not compromise the integrity, then it is a tolerable flaw. Flaws or discontinuities should be
characterised as defects only when specific acceptance criteria, related to the engineering application,
are exceeded, and the presence of the flaw compromises the integrity of the structure. Table
2 summarises the characteristic flaw types in butt and lap welds in friction stir welds and their
principal causes. In fact the most common flaw types are caused by use of under optimised
parameters or a lack of process control. Since understanding of the causes of these flaws/defects is
good, it is usually possible to rectify these problems by changes to parameters, tool designs or
operating practice.
Formation of voids
Figure 11a shows a typical void on the advancing side of a weld. Similar features are sometimes
observed near the base of the pin (Fig.11b). The formation of a continuous tunnel void in this location
was a common observation in early FSW, but was eliminated by the use of tool tilt or the redesign of
pin features. Figure 11c shows a near surface defect left by the trailing edge of the shoulder.[140] Since

voids are not in general surface breaking, they cannot usually be detected by visual or surface
inspection but are relatively easy to pick up by NDE (see below). A number of factors have been
identified as contributing to void formation, including inadequate welding pressure, [140] high travel
speed and slow tool rotation speed[141,142] as well as inadequate control of the joint gap.[140,143] If the
welding pressure is inadequate, the weld will receive insufficient forging action from the tool shoulder
to achieve full consolidation.[140,144]When welding at high travel speeds, and also slow tool rotation
speeds, the material receives less work per unit of weld length, i.e. fewer tool rotations per millimetre.
Under such conditions, the plasticised material may not reach a sufficiently high temperature.
[142,145]
One view is that aluminium alloys can withstand only a certain shear strain rate, which is
dependent on temperature. When subjected to lower shear strain rates, they will flow and recover, but
at higher strain rates they cannot flow/recover fast enough to keep flowing, and they will break up,
forming voids, etc. Colegrove and Shercliff[130] suggested that the void defect shown in Fig.11b formed
near the base of a Trivex pin was due to inadequate forging and consolidation due to the low
temperatures there. Kumar et al.[146] found that a rounded tool was less likely to produce void defects.
Table 2 Summary of characteristic flaw types encountered in friction stir welds

Flaw type

Void (Fig.11a)

Void (Fig.11c)
Joint line
remnant (butt
weld) (Fig.12a)

Root flaw
(Fig.14)

Joint line
remnant (lap
weld)
Hooking (lap
joint) (Fig.18)
Plate thinning
(lap weld)
(Fig.18)

Location

Cause
Low forging pressure.
Welding speed too high.
Advancing side at edge of nugget Plates not clamped
close enough together.
Joint gap too wide.
Welding speed too high
Beneath top surface of weld
Inadequate removal of
Weld nugget, extending from the
oxide from plate edges
root of the weld at the point
Inadequate disruption
where the original plates butted
and dispersal of oxide
together.
by tool.
Tool pin too short.
Weld nugget, extending from the
Incorrect tool plunge
root of the weld at the point
depth.
where the original plates butted
Poor joint to tool
together
alignment.
Inadequate removal of
oxide from plate edges
Plate interface
Inadequate disruption
and dispersal of oxide
by tool.
Advancing side of weld, in
unbonded TMAZ region, normally Ineffective tool design.
extending upwards
Retreating side of weld, in
unbonded TMAZ region.

Ineffective tool design.

Fig.11. Characteristic void flaws in friction stir welds:

a) volumetric flaw in 2014;[140]
b) tunnel (wormhole) defect at base of Trivex tool when welding 7449 at 120 rev min -1/60
mm min-1;[130]
c) surface defect located under shoulder in 2014A (Ref. [140])
The presence of voids on the advancing side of the weld (Fig.11a) has been investigated by
mathematical modelling of metal flow during the welding process. [9, 119, 130] These models predict that
transitional volumes of material will form, between regions of rotational motion of material and regions
in which material is extruded past the rotating tool pin. Bendzsak et al.[9] described the motion in the
transition region as 'chaotic'. The models predict flow singularities (stagnation) in this region of the
advancing side of the weld, which have been considered to be the source of tunnel defects (Fig.11b).
[130]
These defects form under inappropriate welding parameters, such as high welding speed or low
pressures. Further increasing the welding speed or decreasing the welding pressure would cause
extension of the tunnel defect up to the weld surface, ultimately forming a groove type defect. [147] It is
noticeable that the tunnel defect is often observed near the bottom of the weld at the advancing side.
From these observations, FSW could be considered as a process where a cavity formed behind the
welding tool is later filled by plasticised material flowing from the front of the pin to its rear (see
also Fig.4). If the cavity is not filled, then a cavity will remain in the weld. This explanation is
supported by the study of Zhao et al.[148] who found that under identical welding conditions tapered
and cylindrical pins with threads did not show wormhole defects while those without did, because the
thread helps to transport material around the tool back to the advancing side, leaving a void there.
Crawford et al.[149] related the lack of adequate flow and wormhole formation to low weld
pitch, i.e. insufficient rotational speed relative to the weld travel speed.
Prediction of void formation is a particularly difficult modelling problem, due in part to the limitations
of the numerical methods used for flow modelling. Computational fluid dynamics solvers treat the
deforming metal as a hot, viscous fluid, neglecting elasticity. As noted above, CFD gives a good
representation of flow patterns and the internal generation of heat, but cannot readily describe a free
metal surface - the deforming metal fills all the space between the tool and the backing plate. Void
formation necessarily implies a free surface, and is also strongly influenced by the hydrostatic
pressure and the mechanism of cavitation. Computational fluid dynamics models indicate that a region
of hydrostatic tension forms on the tool wake on the advancing side, but the neglect of elastic stresses
means that the predicted pressures are unreliable quantitatively, and there is in any case no criterion
available for the formation of a stable void in hot deforming metals.
Finite element methods are generally better suited to elastic-plastic analysis and therefore to
predicting residual stress (see below), but not to material flow because the strains are very high, due
to the computational demands of continuous, fine scale remeshing. [150] Some success has been

achieved in modelling FSW using the arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian formulation. [151,152] However,
computational run times mean that only very short weld traverses can be simulated, and the models
have great difficulty in capturing the complex weld closure behind the tool, due to the sensitivity to
the local stress state of separation between workpiece and the tool.
Joint line features
Joint line remnants are features that extend from the weld root, at the location of the original parting
line between the butting plates to be welded, through the weld (Fig.12a). Joint line remnants
distributed through the bulk of the weld have been reported by several workers in many alloys. [140,153157]
In some instances, such features can be little more than a string of inadequately dispersed oxide
particles, which originated from the surfaces of the butting plates. A recent study by Sato et al.
[158]
using transmission electron microscopy has confirmed that these strings are indeed Al 2O3 particles.
These are a consequence of the presence of the natural aluminium oxide on the surfaces of the butting
plates.[154,155] The original joint line is clearly discernable in Fig.12a, while at higher magnification, the
clusters of oxide along the prior interface are visible (Fig.12b). Such features are affected by the
welding speed; increasing the welding speed reduces the disruption of the oxide per unit advance of
the tool. Tool shoulder size and tool geometry[140,154,155] may also have an effect. In many cases such
bands of oxide can be innocuous provided good mixing occurs. [158,159] Reynolds[113] suggested that the
curving line arises from remnants of the oxide layer, because the final position of the initial butt
surface after material flow of FSW exhibits a curving line on the cross-section. This has been verified
using marker material experiments in which a thin copper layer is trapped in the joint line, and its final
position identified using X-ray tomography (Fig.3d).[160] Figure 13 shows a tomograph of a stop action
weld, illustrating the breakup and redistribution of the joint line. In cross-section (lower image), it can
be seen that the copper is predominantly distributed in a characteristic curve bordering the weld
nugget on the retreating side.

Fig.12. a) oxide defect in 5083 alloy which can in severe cases lead to 'kissing bond' at the
base,[161]
b) magnified view showing increased oxide inclusion level in 2014 along prior joint line [140]
c) schematic of joint line remnant [161]

Fig.13. X-ray tomographic and corresponding metallographic interpretation of FSW flow

mechanism (after Dickerson et al.):[160] three-dimensional X-ray tomography image (top)
showing break-up of Cu foil placed on joint line; bottom: virtual cross-section revealed by
tomography
From the above discussion, it is important that the oxide interface between the butting plates is
adequately disrupted in order to form a bond, and in the vast majority of cases this is exactly what
happens (Fig.12c). Indeed the original joint line is normally increased in length some 3-5 times, and
the oxide is broken up and scattered, so that most of the original joint line is a metal to metal bond,
and therefore strong. In some cases, the interface is only partially disrupted and remains identifiable
in a cross-section. It is unusual for such joint line remnants to be a problem.
Naturally, the correct depth of penetration of the tool pin is essential to ensure that mixing occurs over
the full plate thickness. Where a shortened pin is used, where the tool plunge depth is incorrectly set,
or where there is poor alignment of the tool relative to the joint line, a root flaw can be produced,
indicative of a complete lack of bonding (Fig.14). In such cases the bond quality improves towards the
nugget. As a result there can be a transition region where a bond exists, but is weak. This is generally
known as a 'kissing bond', a rather unscientific name which has become widely adopted. It is not
possible to identify a kissing bond from a microstructural examination. Zhou et al.[161] have found that
kissing bonds can show 20-40 times shorter fatigue lives for Al 5083 welds and 30-80 times shorter
lives for Al 2024 welds. The fatigue fracture surfaces observed by SEM were consistent with a kissing
bond in that the fractured specimens failed from the root tip of the oxide array. An example of failure
from such a kissing bond under tensile loading is depicted in Fig.15. It should be emphasised that
kissing bonds are rare and can be eliminated by appropriate tool/joining parameters.

Fig.14. Characteristic root flaw in FSW 2014A caused by using too short a pin in 5083 alloy

Fig.15. Cross-section of 5454 FSW specimen with crack after tensile test along kissing
bond [156]
Other flaw types
Flash style features can occur on the top surface: excessive flash is not necessarily a bad thing; in
some products high flash levels are deliberately introduced to ensure adequate penetration, especially
in welds where the fit-up is poor. Flash is normally caused primarily by large plunge depths.
An unusual 'chevron' surface feature has been observed on the root surface of welds in 5xxx series
alloys (Fig.16). Pryzdatek[162] noted that the features were coincident with small root line imperfections
in welds in alloy 5083 and concluded that they were the result of the expulsion of material from the
joint during welding lending evidence to the possibility that some liquation may occur during welding.
Leonard[163] observed similar features in both 5083 and 5251 alloys. To date the features have not
been reported to affect either the mechanical or corrosion behaviour of the joints and it is possible
that the features will remain a curiosity rather than a point of concern. Pryzdatek [162] has noted, in any
case, that light dressing will remove them.

Fig.16. Chevron markings on underside of friction stir weld in 5083 alloy (scale in mm)
Local melting during FSW has been a topic of continual debate. However, conclusive evidence of local
melting in aluminium alloys has been rarely reported. Figure 17 shows a region of the TMAZ beneath
the tool shoulder of a weld in alloy 7050-T7451, produced at TWI, [164] providing clear evidence that
liquation can indeed occur. While this demonstrates that liquation is possible, the paucity of reported
cases of liquation cracking in the literature suggests that the occurrence is less widespread than in
aluminium arc welds. The apparent absence of extensive liquation during welding may be explained as
a consequence of the extensive mechanical deformation experienced during welding. Any liquated area

is likely to be difficult to identify in a metallographic section of the completed weld. It is also worthy of
note that liquation has been found in the TMAZ region of friction stir welds in magnesium alloy ZK60
by Johnson.[165] The formation of grain boundary films was observed, but these could be prevented by
using a lower heat input welding procedure.

Fig.17. Evidence of partial melting on retreating side of nugget in FSW of 6 mm thick

AA7050-T7451 alloy [164]
Sato et al.[64] have described liquation when welding aluminium alloy 1050 to a magnesium alloy. In
this case, the maximum temperature reached can exceed the melting point of the Al12Mg17
intermetallic, with clear evidence of a cast structure being visible. However, this is a special case
resulting from the welding of two very different materials which form a low melting point eutectic.
Lap weld defects
Friction stir lap welds may contain some of the flaw types encountered in butt welds, in particular
voids and oxide joint line remnants, the latter often appearing in a horizontal orientation through the
joint. Owing to the joint geometry, root flaws are not encountered. However, lap welds do exhibit
features at the edges of the bonded region which affect joint properties. Any friction stir lap weld, like
a riveted lap joint, contains notches at the faying surfaces of the sheets. Cederqvist and
Reynolds[166] have shown that such features in friction stir welds can have a marked effect on joint
performance. The notch feature can deviate towards either the top or bottom surface of the weld,
depending on welding conditions, reducing the effective sheet thickness. This feature is sometimes
described as 'hooking', involving a significant rotation of the unwelded interface, sometimes by 90C.
It is found on the advancing side of the weld. It is also not unusual to find upper plate thinning on the
retreating side of the joint, and this can significantly compromise the load bearing capacity of the
joint. Typical examples are shown in Fig.18. Thomas et al.[167] have shown that welding tool design can
have a strong influence on the occurrence of such features and consequently joint properties, in
particular fatigue. CFD modelling has also been used to show how the tool profile modifies the extent
of hooking in lap welds, enabling a degree of prior computer based optimisation of tool profiles. [168]

Fig.18. Lap weld defects showing hooking on advancing side and plate thinning on
retreating side in lap welds between 7075 (upper) and 2024 (lower) alloys
Non-destructive monitoring of defects
Currently, only limited standards exist for evaluating the quality of friction stir welds [136,162] and further
work is required to assess the significance of flaws and their means of detection. It should be noted
however that all welds, whatever process is used, are likely to contain some imperfections, but most
do not seriously compromise performance. Indeed the overwhelming majority of friction stir welds do
not undergo nondestructive inspection, partly because of cost and partly because the incidence of
significant flaws is small, and the risk of a catastrophe minute, as most structures have considerable
redundancy. As a result, hundreds of kilometres of friction stir welds have been safely employed
commercially in most cases, with no more than visual inspection. In areas where a flaw is absolutely
unacceptable (e.g. rocket fuel tanks) very detailed NDE is used, although defects are extremely rare.
In other cases, a statistical process control method is used. If the QA system is tight, and the
parameters fall within certain narrow ranges, then the risk of a defect in a fully mechanised process is
extremely small.
Traditional NDE techniques do not work well with FSW because the techniques were developed for
fusion welds, where different flaws/defects are found, e.g. porosity, solidification cracks, hydrogen
cracks, reheat cracks, lack of fusion, slag entrapment etc., none of which is found in FSWs. The NDE
industry is responding by developing/adapting techniques to cope with this challenge. Using
techniques such as phased array ultrasonics and meandering winding magnetometers, voids can now
be readily detected. A good example of the capability of the ultrasonic method as applied to FSWs is
given in Fig.19.

Fig.19 a) Flaws in cross-section from 6061 FSW tailor welded blank specimen (cylindrical
threaded pin, welding speed 1200 mm min-1, spindle speed 1500 rev min-1, shoulder
penetration 0 mm) and
b) corresponding synthetic aperture focusing technique ultrasonic image [169]

Current NDE techniques are not totally reliable for detecting root flaws. The only definitive method is a
destructive bend test with the root in tension. [136] Efforts are being applied to both advanced ultrasonic
inspection techniques (for example phased array techniques), and sophisticated eddy current
techniques (meandering winding magnetometers, pulsed eddy currents). [169-176]
'Kissing bonds' (see the section on 'Joint line features'), however, are particularly insidious, as they are
difficult to detect using non-destructive techniques which rely on an interruption in the microstructure.
While the oxide stringers are not directly sensed by ultrasonic attenuation, the associated reduction in
grain size can be detected.[176] By comparing the mean noise level inside the root to that of the weld
nugget, the operator can estimate the pin depth and therefore the likelihood of having a kissing bond.

In summary, the FSW process is now mature. Various tools have been designed to meet differing
geometrical demands. In most cases relatively wide processing windows have been established for the
production of large quantities of defect free welds using automated commercial welding systems.

Microstructural features and hardness profiles

Introduction
In any welding process, the properties and performance of the weld are dictated by the
microstructure, which in turn is determined by the thermal cycle of the welding process, which can
normally be varied by changing the welding parameters. Therefore welding parameters must be
selected that give the best possible microstructure and that allow welds to be made free from defects
and other undesirable features. With most materials, it is well understood that welding has some
adverse effects on microstructure and properties, and thus the 'optimised' weld parameters are often
a compromise between making sound welds at economical production rates and producing acceptable,
rather than ideal, microstructures and properties.
Friction stir welds in aluminium alloys contain a wide variety of microstructures, which is hardly
surprising when the extreme range of strains, strain rates and thermal cycles to which different
regions of the weld are exposed is considered. The microstructural variations were first characterised
by Threadgill[134] (see Fig.8). In the HAZ, remote from the centre of the weld, there is no obvious
change to the grain structure (Fig.20c), and the HAZ is detected only by a change in hardness and
generally by a change in etching response. In precipitation hardened alloys it is widely accepted that
some coarsening of precipitates is occurring, and possible dissolution at higher temperatures. In work
hardened alloys, dislocation networks may recover, and this may cause some low angle cell boundaries
to form. Furthermore as the weld centre is approached, clear evidence of plastic deformation can be
seen in the grain structure. In the outer part of the TMAZ, the original grains remain identifiable in the
deformed structure, with the formation of subgrain structures and significant associated rotation of the
parent grains as evidenced by the pole figure in Fig.20b. Closer still to the weld line, the strains,
temperatures and time at elevated temperature all increase, allowing the formation of the
recrystallised nugget with a fine equiaxed structure (Fig.20a). The microstructural characteristics will
first be discussed for the nugget region, in which deformation dominates. Evolution of microstructure
in the heat affected zone is thermally controlled, and this will be discussed separately for non-heattreatable and heat-treatable alloys. The microstructure of welds made between dissimilar alloys is also
discussed briefly.

Fig.20. Microstructure of 2199 alloy FSW displayed using inverse pole figure map obtained
by EBSD, showing refinement of microstructure in nugget
a) nugget;
b) nugget/TMAZ boundary;
c) HAZ region[177] (scale bar corresponds to 50mm in each case)

Deformation microstructure in weld nugget

'Onion ring' structure

A common observation from the nugget region in FSW is the appearance of a series of circular or
elliptical features in etched metallographic sections (see, for example, Fig.8), often termed 'onion
rings' (as the sections reveal a slice through a set of nested layers of roughly hemispherical shape, like
an onion). The significance of this structure in the weld nugget remains an occasional topic of interest
in the literature. Mahoney et al.[6] and Leonard[178] have shown for alloys 7075 and 2014A that the ring
patterns are an etching response to variations in grain size between the rings. Other characteristics of
the rings include texture effects[179,180] and variations in dislocation density.[181] The nugget may also
contain fractured constituent particles[178,182] and the structure has been attributed to a variation in
their distribution.[178,183] This is turn may be a consequence of the banded distribution of the
constituent particles present in the base metal, a characteristic that is strongly alloy dependent.
[184]
These factors primarily relate to the strength of contrast in microstructure observed in the weld
nugget, but do not offer a complete explanation of the mechanism of formation, which has not yet
been formulated. There seems to be strong argument that there is a purely kinematic basis for the
formation of each ring, associated with one rotation of the tool (or the rotation between positions of
tool symmetry, i.e. three per revolution for a Triflute tool). Cyclic fluctuations in the amount of
material extruded past the tool and being deposited are to be expected with profiled tools. [185] It has
therefore been postulated that ring formation may be a function of the tool geometry, tool rotation
and forward travel speeds.[134] Computational fluid dynamics modelling[112] and marker
experiments[120, 186] have also made a modest contribution to the discussion to date. The practical
significance of the phenomenon remains rather limited as the mechanical properties of the nugget are
generally good, and the fracture paths in mechanical tests are seldom associated with the onion rings.
Recovery versus recrystallisation
A feature of the microstructure of friction stir welds in aluminium alloys is the development of a fine
grain structure in the centre of the nugget region, as shown in Fig.20a. Typically, equiaxed grain sizes
of the order of a few micrometres have been measured in the nugget region. The precise nature of
this fine grained region has been the subject of much research and debate in the literature. TEM
studies by several workers, examining a range of different alloys, have shown that the fine grain
structure in this region in the light microscope comprises fine grains possessing predominantly high
angle grain boundaries and a low dislocation density.[6, 187,188] On the basis of these observations, it has
been concluded that the nugget consists of dynamically recrystallised grains, and not subgrains.
[6,8, 187,189]
A similar observation has also been made in a dissimilar weld between copper and alloy
6061,[71] in which fine recrystallised grains rich in both aluminium and copper were observed. One
study of alloy 6061-T651, has contrasted the grain structure of the nugget region with that of the
remainder of the TMAZ.[189] Tilting studies showed that the nugget comprised dynamically
recrystallised grains, whereas the remainder of the TMAZ comprised deformed subgrains, separated by
low angle grain boundaries. Rhodes et al.[190] proposed that the final equiaxed nugget grains in 7050
are formed by grain growth from much finer grains nucleated by the dynamic recrystallisation process,
thus accounting for the low dislocation density. It is also likely that, before recrystallisation, extensive
recovery occurred, as there will be significant plastic flow in the material about to be welded. However,
other studies[191] of 7050-T7451 have shown a high dislocation density in grains in the nugget, and a
study by Sato et al.[192] of 6063-T5 showed that whilst most grains exhibited a low dislocation density,
some grains exhibited a much higher density. These variations in dislocation density may be
associated with the welding process conditions, in particular the forward tool movement per
revolution, but this hypothesis has not been tested. High values of forward tool motion per revolution
produce harder microstructures, but generally similar grain size. The influence of grain size and
dislocation density on strength is difficult to isolate in the heat-treatable alloys, due to the
simultaneous effects of changes in precipitation hardening, requiring detailed TEM studies.
Furthermore the presence of precipitates as a direct influence on the processes of recovery and
recrystallisation. Hassan et al.[193] attempted to simulate the formation of the nugget in AA7010 alloy
using high strain rate torsion tests. This study confirmed the effects of a high precipitate density in
increasing the resistance to recrystallisation, which only occurred at strains of >20. The process of
recrystallisation was also aided by heterogeneous plastic flow.

In a study carried out in the region of the tool pin exit hole in a sample of alloy 7475, it has been
argued that the structure of the weld nugget is one of dynamically recovered subgrains. [194] This was
argued on the basis of rapid and massive grain growth observed during annealing experiments at
temperature above 500C.
This postulation that grain growth is due to the presence of a dynamically recovered subgrain
structure in the TMAZ has been supported by a study of friction stir welds in alloys 6082-T6 and 7108T79, using scanning electron microscopy and electron backscattered diffraction. [195] Using this
technique, which can quantify grain orientations on a polished surface, low angle boundaries were
reported, indicative of a subgrain structure. Fonda et al.[196] have also presented evidence from stop
action tests which indicates that recovery based mechanisms could be of importance in grain
refinement during FSW, although they do not dismiss the possibility of recrystallisation. However,
Mishra et al.[197] have reported abnormal grain growth during heat treatment of friction stir processed
alloys 7050 and 2519 in the temperature range about 450-470C. The authors attributed the
phenomenon not to the presence of a subgrain structure, but to a number of possible factors. These
included dissolution and growth of precipitates, regions of localised strain differences, regions of nonuniform grain size distribution and the existence of boundaries with different mobility. However, it was
recognised that the exact origin of the phenomenon was not clear. Abnormal grain growth is discussed
in more detail below.
It has been suggested that the differences in microstructural observations may be resolved by
considering a mechanism of continuous dynamic recrystallisation in the TMAZ. [182,191,198] The
deformation process associated with welding introduces a large quantity of dislocations, while at the
same time grain growth occurs as the temperature rises. Subgrains, which are very small and exhibit
low angle boundaries, begin to form by a process of dynamic recovery. Continuous dynamic
recrystallisation then occurs as dislocations are continuously introduced to the subgrains by further
deformation. The subgrains grow and rotate as they accommodate more dislocations into their
boundaries, forming equiaxed recrystallised grains with high angle grain boundaries. Plastic
deformation continues with the repeated introduction of dislocations and the process continues until
the end of the thermomechanical cycle, at which point partial recovery takes place. The precise
mechanism remains unresolved, as recent experiments in which the welding tool was retracted rapidly
and the material quenched have shown that very fine recrystallised grains, of the order of 25-100 nm,
from Ref.[190]. These are smaller than the 2-5m grains observed in the weld nugget under normal
welding conditions, suggesting that these arise from a nucleation and growth mechanism. On the basis
of such experiments, Prangnell and Heason[199] suggest that there is no evidence of continuous
recrystallisation by grain rotation, but rather bands of fine nugget scale grains are first formed, from
closely spaced parallel high angle grain boundaries that develop from finer scale deformation bands. A
mixed microstructure develops comprising a matrix of nugget scale grains containing high aspect ratio
fibrous grains having more stable orientations. Finally, even these fibrous grain fragments become
unstable when they thin to subgrain dimensions and break up to form a full nugget-like microstructure
comprised of low aspect ratio ultrafine grains. This mechanism would explain the bands of similarly
oriented fine grains in Fig.20b.
Another point which has been debated is whether all of the recrystallisation in the nugget occurs
during the deformation process (i.e. dynamic recrystallisation) or whether the process continues after
deformation has ceased. The answer is probably more of academic interest than practical significance,
but it is reasonable to assume that static recrystallisation (and subsequent grain growth) is more likely
to occur in thick section welds, where time at elevated temperature will be longer.
Despite some evidence for subgrain formation, the consensus is that recovery is more important in the
highly deformed areas of the TMAZ outside the nugget, where the original grain structure is retained.
The fine equiaxed microstructures in the nugget are the result of recrystallisation processes, presumed
to be predominantly dynamic.
Effect of post-weld heat treatment on grain structure
As noted above, a feature observed in many alloys is that of massive grain growth in the nugget area
during post-weld heat treatment. This not only serves as a guide to the interpretation of the nugget

microstructure that leads to this behaviour, but may also have practical consequences for welds
subjected to post-weld heat treatment. The phenomenon has been reported in 1xxx, [200] 2xxx,[201203]
6xxx,[121, 204,205] and 7xxx[201,206,207] alloys. However, the mechanism may differ between alloys, as the
1xxx alloys are not precipitation hardened.
Sato et al.[200] have observed that massive grain growth in 1100-H24 alloy occurs only when the postweld heat treatment temperature exceeds the maximum temperature experienced during welding, and
may be associated with the formation of small grains with high angle boundaries as a result of primary
recrystallisation. Typical examples are shown in Fig.21, from work by Litwinski[202] on 64 mm 2195T8A3 alloy. Solution treatment at 510C (950F) after welding resulted in massive grain growth in the
lower half of the nugget, and also some less spectacular growth just below the upper surface. The
problem was solved by modifying the welding procedure to produce a higher welding temperature
which reduced the amount of cold work. Attallah and Salem Hassan [203] showed that the risk of rapid
grain growth in 2095 was reduced by high rotation speeds and lower travel speeds, both of which will
increase the heat input. These authors observed rapid grain growth both at the upper surface, and in
the lower part of the weld.
Work by Hassan et al.[207] on 7010-T7651 alloy showed that post-weld heat treatment could lead to
massive grain growth of generally similar appearance to that shown by Litwinski, [202] i.e. concentrated
in the lower portion of the weld. Hassan et al. have suggested that very fine grain sizes in the as
welded nugget are more at risk, as there is insufficient dispersoid available to stabilise the grain
boundaries. Grain growth may also be encouraged by the dissolution of these dispersoids during
heating. The use of a high heat input welding cycle will give coarser as-welded grains, which should be
more stable, although conditions can exist where rapid grain growth can still occur, and it is suggested
that this is associated with the formation of planar fronts on the growing grain. It is also suggested
that a mean grain size of at least 10 m would be required to provide grain stability during solution
heat treatment. Both Hassan et al.[207] and Attallah and Salem Hassan[203] have related the risk of rapid
grain growth to theories of cellular microstructures proposed by Humphreys. [208-210]
Although the precise mechanism may not be fully understood, the above studies indicate strongly that
the risk of rapid grain growth during post-weld heat treatment can be reduced by using high heat
input welding procedures. These will help to remove cold work and increase the as-welded grain size,
and hence the efficiency of a finite number of grain boundary pinning particles. Presumably minimising
post-weld heat treatment times and temperatures will also be helpful.

Fig.21. Microstructure in 6 mm thick 2195 alloy a before and b after post-weld heat
treatment [202]
Grain size control
Certain alloying elements can be added to aluminium alloys to restrict grain growth during high
temperature operations, notably scandium and zirconium. There are claims that adding a small
quantity of scandium to aluminium alloys will improve fusion weldability (resistance to hot
cracking, etc.), with the presence of the thermally stable Al3Sc precipitate limiting grain growth.
Likewise, Al3Zr precipitates have also been identified as beneficial. There are few published data on
FSW of scandium bearing alloys but there is some variance among observations of the effect of Sc on
nugget grain size. Gittos and Bridges[211] (studying two Al-Zn-Cu-Sc alloys, similar to 7010 and 7050),
Huneau et al.[212] (studying an Al-Mg-Sc alloy), and Paglia et al.[213] (studying cast 7050 containing Sc)

found only marginal effects on nugget grain size in the as-welded condition. The Sc addition was ,
012% (Refs.[211 and 213]) or 026% (Ref.[212]) and Zr was present to a similar level in the work of Gittos
and Bridges[211] and Huneau et al.[212] However, unpublished work has shown a beneficial effect of
scandium on grain size in the weld. Sato et al.[214] found that in a binary Al-Zr alloy, the presence of Zr
had no significant effect on the nugget microstructures, implying that recrystallisation occurs above
the Al3Zr solution temperature. However, the presence of the Zr in solid solution limits dislocation
movement and hence recovery mechanisms in the non-recrystallised TMAZ, thus limiting grain growth.
Charit and Mishra[215] have shown very fine grain structures in a friction stir processed Al-Zn-Mg-Sc
casting, quoting a mean grain diameter of 068 m. This value is significantly less than found in
friction stir welds in other alloys, and supports the suggestion of Rhodes et al.[190] that all welds
initially produce such fine grain sizes. This demonstrates that in the absence of the stabilising effect of
the Al3Sc or Al3Zr precipitate there will be some grain growth. This view is supported by later work
from Hsu et al.[216] who introduced fine dispersions of Al3Ti into a pure aluminium matrix, achieving
mean grain sizes of between 030 and 153 m after friction stir processing. In summary, it seems that
the inclusion of grain growth inhibiting elements can be beneficial, but further work is needed to fully
understand the mechanisms by which they operate, and to achieve the full potential of these alloy
additions.
Texture
A number of studies have examined the development of texture in friction stir welds. [153, 196, 217219]
Studies by Fieldet al.[218] indicated that local textures were largely alloy independent, which is
supported by the work of others. There are two regimes of texture, one in the area where the process
is dominated by the shoulder, and another in the area further down where the shoulder plays no part,
as evidenced by Ahmed et al.[80] for thick section 6082 welds. The texture is very simple in the pin
dominated region, as might be expected. Work to date has reported textures in the weld nugget that
are consistent with a shear deformation process. Jin et al.[153] studying welds in 5xxx series alloys,
have predicted the deformation characteristics of the weld nugget, concluding that they appeared to
be more isotropic than that of the parent plate. This finding has implications for the deformation
behaviour of friction stir welds, and for potential applications in, for example, tailor welded blanks.
However, the significance of texture development in relation to mechanical properties and sheet
forming operations has yet to be rigorously tested.

Microstructure and hardness evolution in nonheat-treatable

alloys
Limited microstructural studies have been performed on non-heat-treatable alloys, covering alloys
1100,[204,220]5083,[180, 221] 5754, 5251,[222,223] and 5182.[153] Welds were made in both the annealed (O)
and various cold worked conditions. Macroscopically, welds in these alloys appear similar to welds in
heat-treatable alloys, exhibiting a TMAZ and recrystallised nugget. [153, 220] Hardness traverses in work
hardened non-heat-treatable alloys (e.g. 5xxx alloys in the H1xx, H2xx or H3xx conditions) normally
resemble that shown in Fig.22. As the weld is approached, the heat from the process causes annealing
and recovery to take place, leading to a drop in hardness. The minimum hardness is typically in the
nugget, where the fine grained, fully recrystallised structure (discussed above) is formed. However,
welds made in annealed material (e.g. 5xxx in the O condition) do not exhibit an HAZ. Hardness
traces show little or no variation in hardness between the parent metal and weld (Fig.22). Sometimes
the weld nugget may be slightly harder than the O condition, due to modest (hot) work hardening and
grain refinement. Since the nugget formation eliminates the prior deformation microstructure in cold
worked material, the hardness of the nugget region is independent of the original condition, as seen
for alloy 5083 in Fig.22.

Fig.22. Hardness traverses across friction stir welds in 5083-O and 5083-H321 alloys
showing effect of heat treatment
Since few finely dispersed second phase particles exist to pin grain boundaries, the effects of recovery
and recrystallisation are, unsurprisingly, different from those in precipitation hardened alloys. Thus the
extremely elongated and deformed grains found in the nonrecrystallised TMAZ in precipitation
hardened alloys are not generally seen in precipitate free alloys. The transition from non-recrystallised
to recrystallised is far less distinct, implying that recrystallisation is much easier in the absence of
precipitates. Experiments by Genevois et al.[222] have shown that at 350C, heavily strained 5251 will
recrystallise in 15 s, whereas identically treated 2024 required 1800 s to recrystallise.
Microstructural modelling in non-heat-treatable alloy FSW has been limited to predicting the loss of
hardness across the weld in initially cold worked tempers. [52] The minimum hardness corresponds to
complete recrystallisation, while the base metal hardness corresponds to no recrystallisation. The
problem is therefore to predict the positions between which the volume fraction recrystallised varies
from 0 to 100%. The resulting hardness is then estimated using a linear rule of mixtures of the
limiting hardness values. The extent of recrystallisation is primarily determined by the peak
temperature reached in the weld thermal cycle, together with the duration of the time at temperature.
A common approach to modelling microstructural change in a thermal cycle is to replace the cycle with
an isothermal hold of duration teq at the peak temperature Tp of the cycle. The duration of the hold is
defined to be that which provides the same 'kinetic strength', I, as the thermal cycle, defined as

The function t*(T) captures the temperature dependence of the transformation time for isothermal
holds (e.g.obtained via saltbath experiments). In practice, it is common to use hardness data from
annealing experiments directly, fitting the data semi-empirically as a function of isothermal
temperature and hold time. At each position in the weld, Tp is evaluated from a thermal model, the
kinetic strength and teq found by integrating the equation above, and the values substituted into the
hardness function.

Microstructure and hardness evolution in heat-treatable

alloys
Heat-treatable aluminium alloys derive much of their strength from the presence of fine precipitates,
formed during prior heat treatment (age hardening). The thermal cycles experienced during welding
can lead to precipitate coarsening or dissolution, and further precipitation during or after cooling,
depending on the peak temperature and duration of the cycle. Given the technological importance of
these alloys, FSW has been studied in a wide range of 2xxx, 6xxx and 7xxx series alloys, in naturally
aged and artificially aged tempers. The microstructural development of heat-treatable alloys, and the
corresponding evolution of hardness (Fig.23), during FSW have been studied extensively.[6,8, 48,51, 121, 142,
168, 178,179,182,187-189,191,192,204, 221,222,224-232]

Fig.23. Schematic plots showing generic hardness responses across friction stir welds
Hardness profiles in heat-treatable alloys
Transverse hardness profiles are a common starting point for interpreting some of the changes that
occur during welding. Repeat measurement after a period of natural aging is also useful, indicating
that supersaturated solute remains immediately after welding and the final profile may be enhanced.
Indeed, since postweld natural aging starts immediately and may continue for many months, reported
results are subject to some uncertainty as the interval after welding is frequently not controlled or
documented.
Interpretation of hardness data merits a degree of caution for other practical reasons. For example,
lower loads may be chosen to enable greater spatial resolution of rapidly varying profiles, but this
introduces more scatter. Samples mounted in a hot press may have been further aged by the
mounting process. Most published profiles are for the midthickness of a plate, but it is apparent
from Fig.8 that variations through thickness will be expected. Only occasional studies map the whole
cross-section, due to the effort involved.
Most friction stir welds in heat-treatable alloys, welded in the peak aged or overaged conditions (T6/T7
tempers), exhibit a characteristic hardness profile, as typified in Fig.23. The significant effect of postweld natural aging for a 7075-T6 weld is illustrated in Fig.24.[178] In the HAZ, softening is observed,
with a rapid drop in hardness as the TMAZ is approached. The greatest recovery in strength is
observed in the nugget. Both coarsening and dissolution lead to a drop in hardness, but strength
recovery only occurs following dissolution. The hardness profiles are therefore consistent with
precipitate coarsening being dominant in the HAZ (lower peak temperatures) and dissolution in the
nugget (peak temperatures above the solvus of the initial precipitates), followed by natural aging. The
nugget strength may also be augmented by its deformation substructure, as discussed above. For
naturally aged tempers (T3/T4) there is the additional possibility that coarsening causes a strength
increase in the HAZ, in the region where the peak temperature is comparable with conventional aging
temperatures (150-200C), and the initial GP zones can evolve to a more hardening state. It is also
important to recognise that, in all heat-treatable alloys, precipitate evolution is not limited to the bulk
of the grains. For example, grain boundaries may exhibit widening of precipitate free zones. [182,191] This
will clearly not be evident in hardness profiles, but may be significant in relation to ductility,
toughness, fatigue or corrosion.

Fig.24. Hardness profiles showing natural aging in 6 mm 7075-T6 alloy [178]

Faster welding speeds generally lead to colder welds, though there is a more complex relationship
between thermal history and speed than in fusion welds, due to the dependence of the heat input
itself on the welding speed. Higher speed welds tend to have a narrower HAZ, [233,234] and the nugget
hardness is also often increased due to the reduced deformation temperature and increased strain
rate. Figure 25 shows hardness data for 6 mm 7075-T7351 alloy for plates welded at different times
during a five year period in which tools and practices evolved significantly: from a traditional threaded
pin tool (1995), a traditional tool with accelerated cooling (1997), to an advanced (Triflute) tool
allowing a substantial increase in welding speed (2005). A traditional threaded pin tool is now
recognised as being of low efficiency. Then the application of a high conductivity toolbed, which
extracted heat far more rapidly than a conventional steel bedplate, was applied. More recently, this
has been allied to the use of a high efficiency tool (in this case a Triflute tool, see Fig.2). It is clear
that progressive reductions in heat have increased the hardness of the nugget, increased the
minimum hardness measured at the HAZ/TMAZ boundary, and reduced the overall width of the HAZ.

Since strength recovery is commonly observed in the nugget due to natural aging, it might be
expected that post-weld heat treatment would be employed to promote artificial aging. However this is
not widely practised on aluminium fabrications, for which a complete resolution heat treatment is not
often feasible, or economic. Low temperature heat treatment is practised in some companies to
stabilise the microstructure in 2xxx and 7xxx welds. In T3/T4 tempers there is little benefit in elevated
temperature post-weld heat treatment. Natural aging potentially restores the weld to the initial
strength, if complete dissolution took place in the weld nugget, however the HAZ region will remain
softer even after very long periods.

Precipitate evolution in heat-treatable alloys

The detail of precipitation behaviour in friction stir welds is of course more complex than the simple
outline above, as revealed by transmission electron microscopy. Early studies[6, 187] on welds in
alloys 7075 and 2014 identified that the weld nugget contained overaged precipitates. However, these
studies and others[178,191] demonstrate that the hardness of the weld nugget commonly increases
during subsequent aging, indicating that the nugget contains sufficient solute capable of sustaining
subsequent metastable precipitation and age hardening. Strangwood et al.[187]have postulated,
based upon TEM observations of precipitate sizes and volume fractions, that both aging and resolution of precipitates occur in the nugget during welding of alloys 7075 and 2014. This is further
supported by temperature measurements made during welding, which demonstrate that the
theoretical dissolution temperatures for hardening precipitates in both 7075 and 2014 were exceeded.
Su et al.[182] have argued that the temperatures achieved during the welding thermal cycle for alloy
7050-T651 were sufficiently high to take all of the strengthening precipitates in the nugget into
solution. The cooling rate was not sufficiently rapid to prevent reprecipitation, but this was favoured by
heterogeneous nucleation at dislocations and constituent particles, resulting in only large precipitates
forming. It has been argued that the observed hardness peak in the nugget is due to a number of
factors: a decrease in grain size, solid solution strengthening and comminution of constituent particles.
[178,187] With regard to comminution, it has been postulated that some dissolution of constituent
particles may occur as a result of the thermomechanical processing achieved in the stirred region.
[178]
Precipitation studies in the HAZ of alloys 7075 and 2014 have shown full precipitation of the
equilibrium phases,[6,187,191] in common with arc welding.[235] Strangwood et al.[187] and
Svensson and Karlsson[188] have shown that precipitation is favoured at matrix/ constituent particle
interfaces. Full strength may be recovered only by a full solution anneal;[187] a post-weld aging heat
treatment is not applicable.[6, 187] It is worth noting that some aging of the HAZ has been observed
in alloys 2014A-T651 and 7075-T651,[178] suggesting that some reversion may take place, but this
was within the first few hours after welding, after which no appreciable aging was observed.
Figure 26 shows 7050 welds made in 635 mm 7050-T7451 alloy. This temper is overaged, designed to
give a good compromise between mechanical strength and corrosion performance. More recent TEM
studies have systematically investigated the precipitation state in the HAZ, TMAZ and weld nugget, as
a function of welding conditions (and also peak temperature of the thermal cycle, inferred from
thermal modelling).[236] While TEM studies reveal precipitation behaviour in detail, they have limited
quantitative capability, and are restricted practically to a few locations per weld. A powerful technique
for obtaining quantitative data covering whole welds is small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) using
synchrotron X-rays. This is an expensive technique and not available routinely, but the studies
conducted on FSW offer valuable insight into the process.[230,232,236]
Figure 27 shows representative SAXS maps for precipitate volume fraction and size of precipitates in
7449 FSW. This technique was used to quantify and explain the differences in final precipitate
distributions between T3 and T79 tempers, each welded at high and low speed. The SAXS data were
supported by selective TEM observations and provide robust evidence for the interpretation of
hardness profiles. In particular, the relative extent of coarsening in the HAZ, and dissolution in the
nugget are clearly evident. The higher precipitate fraction in the plate in the T79 condition compared
to T3 is also evident.
Since strength recovery is commonly observed in the nugget due to natural aging, it might be
expected that post-weld heat treatment would be employed to promote artificial aging. However this is
not widely practised on aluminium fabrications, for which a complete resolution heat treatment is not
often feasible, or economic. Low temperature heat treatment is practised in some companies to
stabilise the microstructure in 2xxx and 7xxx welds. In T3/T4 tempers there is little benefit in elevated
temperature post-weld heat treatment. Natural aging potentially restores the weld to the initial
strength, if complete dissolution took place in the weld nugget, however the HAZ region will remain
softer even after very long periods.
Precipitate evolution in heat-treatable alloys

The detail of precipitation behaviour in friction stir welds is of course more complex than the simple
outline above, as revealed by transmission electron microscopy. Early studies[6, 187] on welds in
alloys 7075 and 2014 identified that the weld nugget contained overaged precipitates. However, these
studies and others[178,191] demonstrate that the hardness of the weld nugget commonly increases
during subsequent aging, indicating that the nugget contains sufficient solute capable of sustaining
subsequent metastable precipitation and age hardening. Strangwood et al.[187]have postulated,
based upon TEM observations of precipitate sizes and volume fractions, that both aging and resolution of precipitates occur in the nugget during welding of alloys 7075 and 2014. This is further
supported by temperature measurements made during welding, which demonstrate that the
theoretical dissolution temperatures for hardening precipitates in both 7075 and 2014 were exceeded.
Su et al.[182] have argued that the temperatures achieved during the welding thermal cycle for alloy
7050-T651 were sufficiently high to take all of the strengthening precipitates in the nugget into
solution. The cooling rate was not sufficiently rapid to prevent reprecipitation, but this was favoured by
heterogeneous nucleation at dislocations and constituent particles, resulting in only large precipitates
forming. It has been argued that the observed hardness peak in the nugget is due to a number of
factors: a decrease in grain size, solid solution strengthening and comminution of constituent particles.
[178,187] With regard to comminution, it has been postulated that some dissolution of constituent
particles may occur as a result of the thermomechanical processing achieved in the stirred region.
[178]
Precipitation studies in the HAZ of alloys 7075 and 2014 have shown full precipitation of the
equilibrium phases,[6,187,191] in common with arc welding.[235] Strangwood et al.[187] and
Svensson and Karlsson[188] have shown that precipitation is favoured at matrix/ constituent particle
interfaces. Full strength may be recovered only by a full solution anneal;[187] a post-weld aging heat
treatment is not applicable.[6, 187] It is worth noting that some aging of the HAZ has been observed
in alloys 2014A-T651 and 7075-T651,[178] suggesting that some reversion may take place, but this
was within the first few hours after welding, after which no appreciable aging was observed.
Figure 26 shows 7050 welds made in 635 mm 7050-T7451 alloy. This temper is overaged, designed to
give a good compromise between mechanical strength and corrosion performance. More recent TEM
studies have systematically investigated the precipitation state in the HAZ, TMAZ and weld nugget, as
a function of welding conditions (and also peak temperature of the thermal cycle, inferred from
thermal modelling).[236] While TEM studies reveal precipitation behaviour in detail, they have limited
quantitative capability, and are restricted practically to a few locations per weld. A powerful technique
for obtaining quantitative data covering whole welds is small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) using
synchrotron X-rays. This is an expensive technique and not available routinely, but the studies
conducted on FSW offer valuable insight into the process.[230,232,236]
Figure 27 shows representative SAXS maps for precipitate volume fraction and size of precipitates in
7449 FSW. This technique was used to quantify and explain the differences in final precipitate
distributions between T3 and T79 tempers, each welded at high and low speed. The SAXS data were
supported by selective TEM observations and provide robust evidence for the interpretation of
hardness profiles. In particular, the relative extent of coarsening in the HAZ, and dissolution in the
nugget are clearly evident. The higher precipitate fraction in the plate in the T79 condition compared
to T3 is also evident.

Fig.26. Comparison of microstructures in 7050 FSW[191] (TEM bright field images: welds
made at 396 rev min-1, 102 mm min-1)
a) 7050 parent material: well characterised intragranular precipitates are '
[Mg(Zn,Cu,Al)2] and intergranular precipitates are (MgZn2) and/or Mg3Zn3Al2;
b) area in HAZ, where same precipitates are found but thermal cycle has led to 56 increase
in size;
c) area from recrystallised nugget, where some grains had significant dislocation densities:
dislocations are pinned by Al3Zr dispersoids or Al7Cu2Fe inclusions

Fig.27. Small angle X-ray scattering maps of volume fraction and size of precipitates in
friction stir welds of T3 and T79 7449 alloy produced at low welding speeds:230 FSW tool
shoulder diameter 23 mm
Svensson and Karlsson[188] and Svensson et al.[237] studied the complex precipitation sequence in
various regions of a friction stir weld in 6082, which is one of the most common alloys welded by this
process. The normal hardening precipitate in this alloy is '' (Mg5Si6), but this can dissolve easily at

temperatures of 200-250C, which are easily reached in the HAZ, and another precipitate, '
(Mg17Si), forms on dispersoids in the matrix very easily at ~300C, a typical temperature in the HAZ.
This is less effective as a hardening precipitate. However, in the nugget region, temperatures are
much higher, allowing dissolution of all precipitates, and ' does not form easily, as the weld will cool
very rapidly through the temperature range where such precipitation can occur. Figure 28 shows
typical examples of HAZ and nugget microstructures.

Fig.28. Images (TEM) of friction stir welds in 6082-T6 alloy

a) in nugget zone dispersoids are free from precipitates;
b) in low hardness zone, needle-like precipitates of '-Mg17Si are found on
dispersoids[237]
Fonda et al.[196] have studied the precipitation sequence in an underaged 2195 alloy of 25 mm
thickness. Figure 29shows examples of the precipitate structure in the HAZ, TMAZ and nugget for
2195, and clearly exemplifies the significant changes which occur. Evidence is shown for the
coarsening of the T1 and ' precipitates. In the TMAZ, these precipitates are gradually replaced by a '
phase (Al3Li), with none of the initial phases being present in the hottest part of the unrecrystallised
TMAZ. Guinier-Preston zones were also detected at this point. Rod shaped precipitates, identified as
TB phase (Al7Cu4Li), were detected in the nugget region. These often nucleate on ' (Al3Zr) which is
difficult to distinguish from the ' phase.

Fig.29. Transmission electron diffraction patterns and micrographs from HAZ, TMAZ and
nugget region of friction stir weld in 2195 alloy [196]
Generally, the trends in precipitation observed in 2xxx and 7xxx series alloys have been matched in
6xxx series alloys. Coarsening of ' precipitates and solution of needle precipitates was observed in
the HAZ of welds in alloy 6063.[142, 192,204,228] However, studies of precipitation behaviour in the
weld nugget of 6xxx series alloys have produced some conflicting results. Murr et al.[8] published TEM
micrographs of the weld nugget in alloy 6061 showing large precipitates present, but their identity was
not established. However, Lienert and Grylls[189] reported that only second phase particles,
presumably constituent particles, were present in the weld nugget of the same alloy; the hardening
precipitate '' was noted to be absent from the microstructure, implying that dissolution and not
overaging had occurred during welding of this particular alloy. Temperature measurements taken
during welding, which indicated that the precipitate dissolution temperature was exceeded, were
reported to support this observation. A similar result has been reported in a series of studies on alloy
6063, welded in both the T4 and T5 conditions.[142, 192,204,228] Evidently, welding conditions have
an effect on the thermal cycle experienced by the nugget and this may explain the observations. As
observed in other precipitation hardenable aluminium alloy systems, aging studies have shown that
joint properties may be improved by post-weld heat treatment.[204]
Modelling of microstructure and hardness evolution in heat-treatable alloys
The evolution of microstructure and hardness in heat-treatable alloy FSW has been modelled in most
detail, adapting methods developed for arc welding.[238-244] For the HAZ, the problem is purely
thermal; for the TMAZ and nugget there is the potential added complexity of coupling between the
deformation microstructure and precipitation. These microstructure models fall into two categories:
1.

2.

semi-empirical (with some physical basis), based on isothermal heat treatments and indirect
calibration via hardness measurement, and able to predict hardness profiles across welds

physically based, using detailed thermodynamics and kinetics of phase transformations,

calibrated on direct measurement of microstructural features, and able to predict hardness and
strength, with the potential for extension to ductility, fracture toughness, fatigue and corrosion
properties.
The semi-empirical methodology has been applied to FSWin 2000, 6000 and 7000 series alloys.
[51,52, 121, 168,245-249] This method uses the kinetic strength concept, outlined in the section on

'Deformation microstructure in weld nugget' above. Isothermal softening experiments are conducted,
and the hardness scaled to the residual volume fraction of hardening precipitates. A simple kinetic
model for dissolution is used to calibrate the temperature dependent dissolution time t*(T). Thermal
cycles are converted to equivalent isothermal holds, and the final precipitate fraction and hardness
predicted, including the extent of subsequent natural aging. It is currently limited to artificially aged
tempers (T5, T6, or T7), for which dissolution is the dominant mechanism. Figure 30 shows predicted
and measured hardness profiles, including predicted curves immediately after welding and after
natural aging.[52]

Fig.30. Semi-empirical model predictions and measured hardness profiles in 20 mm thick

friction stir weld in 7449-TAF, at six different depths through thickness (after Colegrove et
al.) [248]
More sophisticated approaches to the evolution of precipitation in heat-treatable aluminium alloys
have been developed and applied to FSW.[242-244,250,251] Both these and the simple semi-empirical models
have been incorporated into integrated modelling platforms for FSW, spanning heat generation,
thermal modelling and prediction of microstructure and hardness profiles for heat-treatable aerospace
alloys.[248]
In these analyses, the evolution of the full size distribution of precipitates is modelled, capturing the
competition between dissolution, coarsening and transformation from one phase to another. Extensive
use is made of direct measurement of volume fractions and particle radii by SAXS and electron
microscopy (TEM or FEG SEM) for calibration and validation of the model. The key ingredients of the
physically based methodology are:
1.

thermodynamic calculation of phase stability for both metastable and equilibrium precipitates,
employing thermodynamic database software

2.
classical isothermal nucleation, growth and coarsening theory, applied to thermal cycles.
More than one population of precipitates may be considered simultaneously, with the competition
between phases and evolution of each phase determined by the instantaneous microstructural state
and temperature. Figure 31 shows an example of the predicted evolution of various phases for
different locations in a FSW of alloy AA7449-T7. [248]

Fig.31. Predicted evolution of a) precipitate volume fraction and b) equivalent radius in

AA7449-T7 friction stir weld, for three positions typical of nugget, TMAZ and HAZ (after
Colegrove et al.) [248]
The models are complex, requiring expert users, and have a significant computational penalty, but the
potential benefits are large. For example, FEG SEM is able to provide independent data for grain bulk
and grain boundaries. This opens up the potential for modelling the effect of dislocation structures on
precipitation within the TMAZ and nugget, including quench sensitivity effects (i.e. precipitation of
non-hardening phases during the cooling part of the thermal cycle). Strength and hardness predictions
can also be made at a more detailed level than in the semi-empirical approach, using the predicted
volume fraction and average radius.[252,253] In principle, the detailed description of the precipitate state
(including distinctions between grain interiors and boundaries) can be used to predict more complex
but industrially critical properties, such as ductility, fracture toughness, fatigue and corrosion. Some
recent results for fracture toughness modelling are presented by Derry and Robson. [254] Microstructural
models of this type require careful calibration to data from thermodynamic computation and high
resolution microscopy. They are primarily used to develop scientific understanding, but, suitably
packaged, can offer industrial users with a tool to reduce the number of experimental trials in, for
example, a new joint design, for previously calibrated alloys. But there remains the prospect in future
of using such tools for alloy development, in which the friction stir weldability of a new alloy variant is
considered earlier in the development programme, alongside the core mechanical and corrosion
properties.

Dissimilar welds
In agreement with the distinct macroscale separation discussed in the section on 'Mixing across
dissimilar welds', close examination of weld cross-sections commonly shows alternating bands of each
alloy, often only micrometres wide. Larsson et al.[49] have described EDS scans of Mg across two
boundaries between 5083 and 6082 regions. The transition between the two Mg levels is located to
within a few micrometres, suggesting only limited diffusion occurs. No evidence of regions with an
intermediate composition can be seen. Many other examples exist which show the sharp transition, for
example that shown in Fig.32, which shows X-ray maps from 2219-T87/7075-T6 and 5083H321/6082-T6 dissimilar welds. In both cases the sharp boundaries between the phases are clearly
evident. Hardness data show the expected behaviour in the HAZ and unrecrystallised TMAZ regions.
However, in the nugget different behaviour is often observed. The hardness in the nugget can oscillate
between the hardness levels expected for each of the two alloys as seen in Fig.33a, although this is
not always the case: in Fig.33b the response is simply a composite of the responses of the two
constituent alloys (see Fig.22), with the 6082 hardness in the nugget immediately after welding being
much less than after aging. In common with welds in a single alloy, the nugget region is not generally
the origin of tensile failure, so in dissimilar alloys failure will be controlled by the HAZ/TMAZ of lowest
strength in the two alloys concerned.

Fig.32. X-ray maps from nugget regions in dissimilar welds (100 m markers)
a) Mg trace for joining 5083-H321 (light) to 6061-T6 (dark);
b) Cu trace for joining 2219-T87 (light) to 7075-T6 (dark)

Fig.33. Hardness traverses across 6mm thickness dissimilar welds: [52]

a) 7075-T7351/2219-T6 and 2219/7075;
b) 6082-T6/5083-H321 [52]
In summary, both heat-treatable and non-heat-treatable alloys have marked variations in
microstructure and hardness across FSWs. In the former the growth, dissolution and reprecipitation of

strengthening precipitates across the welds must be accounted for, while loss of work hardening is
important in the latter. Models capable of capturing these effects have been developed. For both alloy
types the complex grain structure variations can be explained in terms of grain growth, recovery and
recrystallisation driven primarily by the reduction in stored energy as a function of the local peak
temperature attained.

Mechanical properties
There is an ever increasing volume of data in the literature on mechanical properties of friction stir
welds.[255] It is thus beyond the scope of the present review to summarise all aspects. An ISO standard
(ISO 25239: Friction stir welding - aluminium) on FSW will be published in 2009; this uses other ISO
standards to define standard mechanical tests. When considering specimen design, as for all welding
processes, the dimension of the initial test specimens should have some relationship to the final
structure, in particular to ensure that the heat sink is representative, and that a steady state is
reached (at least approximately) and that the residual stresses are comparable. Finally it should be
noted that hardness was discussed above as a useful means of delineating microstructural changes
across friction stir welds.

Tensile properties
It is often stated that the tensile properties of friction stir welds generally equal or exceed those
reported for fusion welds. Although this is often the case, some qualification of this statement is in
order:
1.

tensile properties of fusion welds made with a filler are often determined as much by the filler
as by the welding process: in general when fusion welding aluminium alloys, the filler wire is not
the same composition as the parent material, and therefore may not have the same mechanical
properties

2.

alloys such as 2xxx and 7xxx are designed to have high strength, and therefore the strength
of welds is of particular importance. Unfortunately, these alloys are generally difficult, and
sometimes impossible, to weld by fusion processes; thus, comparative data from high quality
fusion welds is scarce, or non-existent, and comparisons with FSW are not always
straightforward

3.

when comparing tensile data on different types of weld, care should be taken to establish how
the measurements have been made, e.g. removing the overfill in fusion welds may affect the
properties, and not all authors state whether or not this has been done; determination of yield
stress is dependent on the technique and equipment used (again not always stated).
When assessing tensile data, it should be remembered that, as shown above, the microstructure
across a friction stir weld is typically highly non-uniform. As a result yield strength, tensile strength
and ductility may change considerably over very short distances. Consequently very different results
can be obtained according to whether the welds have been tested longitudinal or transverse to the
weld. The stress-strain response will vary even for cross-weld tests according to the width of sample,
since this will determine the retained residual stresses (see below), and the length of the testpieces
since this will determine the average ductility/overall elongation, 02% yield stress, etc. There are
many reports of low elongation in cross-weld tensile tests of welds; however, in many cases this is not
due to low ductility, as confirmed by the significant reduction in area. Instead, the strain will have
been concentrated in a very small part of the gauge length where a locally softer microstructure may
have formed. Studies of deformation by Mahoney et al.[6] on 635 mm 7075-T7541 and Liu et al.[256] on
5 mm 1050-H24, 6061-T6 and 2017-T351 have demonstrated the variability in strain across
transverse tensile samples. Consequently, overall elongation measurements made on cross-weld
samples tend to be unrepresentative of any region of the weld and serve only to identify the likely
failure location under static loading.
Two strategies have been developed for extracting more representative data to map the properties
across friction stir welds, the former more suited to extracting longitudinal properties, the latter
capable of extracting transverse properties:

1.

the excision of matchstick style microtensile test samples: in this manner samples can be
removed parallel to the welding direction x that are representative of parent, TMAZ, HAZ or weld
nugget

2.

the cutting out of thin cross-weld testpieces: here, the microstructure varies along the
length y of the testpiece, but not through the thickness z or width x, provided the testpiece is
sufficiently thin. In such a case deformation behaviour will vary as a function of y position. This
can be monitored by full field strain mapping using laser speckle interferometry or digital image
correlation, for example.
Microtensile testing has provided the bulk of the data delineating the variation in mechanical
properties across the various microstructural zones of friction stir welds (Fig.34a and b). Such studies
include those by von Strombeck and co-workers, [257-259] Allehaux et al.[260] using 10 mm thick 7349-T6
alloy and Denquin et al.[261] using 6 mm thick 6056 alloy. In the last case, minimum ductility was
reported in the centre of the nugget region; the stress-strain response parallel to the welding direction
was measured as a function of lateral distance from the weld, e.g. Fig.34b.

Fig.34. a) hardness profiles for Al2024 friction stir weld at three depths, [259]
b) corresponding longitudinal tensile performance as determined by microtensile
specimens,[259]
c) variation in hardness (bold circles) and 02% proof stress (open circles) as determined
from cross-weld tensile test[180] monitored by electronic speckle pattern interferometry for
FSW AA5083 welded at 200 mm min-1 and
d) corresponding evolution of tensile strain with position across weld as crossweld load is
raised[180](HAZ boundaries marked by dashed lines)
Cross-weld testing can provide useful insights if the strain is measured as a function of position
through the microstructural zones. Initially, this was carried out by monitoring closely spaced parallel
lines[6] or Vickers indents,[204] laser extensometry[262] or a small number of strain gauges.
[263]
Mahoney et al.[6] recorded the distribution of strain at failure for 7075-T651 alloy FSW which
showed very close agreement with the hardness variation characteristic of FSW for the alloy. The peak
elongation (~15%) corresponded to the HAZ with the strain in the weld nugget close to that of the
parent in accord with their similar hardness. A more sophisticated approach is to measure the strains
by digital image correlation[264] or by electronic speckle pattern interferometry.[180, 265] The variation in
02% proof stress across an AA5083 FSW joint are shown in Fig.34c. It is clear from Fig.34d that
failure occurs just outside the tool shoulder because this is the softest region of the weld zone. In this

case the performance perpendicular to the weld direction is measured as a function of lateral position
from the weld, e.g. Fig.34d.
When collecting tensile strength data on the basis of cross-weld testing it should be remembered that
friction stir welds typically have significant residual stresses (see below). Test samples cut from larger
plates may retain a significant proportion of the weld stresses which may compromise tensile strength
measurements. Only when the cross-weld sample width is less than the size of the tensile zone
(approximately the width of the HAZ) is the residual stress negligibly small. [266]
As a result of an international collaborative effort (Eurostir), [267] data for a variety of alloys have been
published: the performance of different alloy types and tempers from this and numerous other sources
(where indicated) can be grouped together. Their generic hardness responses are shown schematically
in Fig.23 and their mechanical performance is as follows.
For heat-treatable alloys (e.g. 2xxx, 6xxx or 7xxx alloys in the T6 or T7 condition), irrespective of the
heat treatment condition, cross-weld tensile tests normally fail at the side of the nugget, at or close to
the HAZ/TMAZ boundary.[268]The failure mechanism is a ductile shear failure, showing 45 facets. In
thicker samples, the faceting may be more complex, but the mechanism is the same. The elongation
is almost invariably less than found in the parent material, due entirely to concentration of strain in
softer regions. The local ductility at failure can be estimated from the reduction in area, and
substantial necking, indicating good ductility, is common.
Tensile strength is typically about the same as found in the parent material in the annealed condition,
although significant improvements can be made by minimising the thermal cycle. Joint efficiencies
exceeding 90% have been reported in 7xxx alloys. Liu et al.[269] reported joint efficiencies as high as
82% for 2017-T351. Sato and Kokawa[204]report an inverted top hat profile for yield strength, the
trough in the nugget and HAZ being 50% of the parent T5 condition for 6063Al. Upon post-weld aging
95% of parent strength in the weld region was recovered, although the fracture location remained
unchanged.
Failures can occur on advancing and retreating sides, although for a series of welds they will usually all
fail on one side or all fail on the other.
For work hardened non-heat-treatable alloys (e.g. 5xxx alloys in the H1xx, H2xx or H3xx conditions),
failure of cross-weld tensile specimens normally occurs in the centre of the weld, where the hardness
is at a minimum (Fig.34). For example, in Fig.15, the AA5454 joint has failed at a kissing bond.
[156]
Despite this, the failure stress and elongation is only some 10% less than the parent. For AA1050H24 failure was on the advancing or retreating side with the distance from the weld centre decreasing
with decreasing pitch in correspondence with a narrowing troughs in hardness. [268] The failure stress
observed is typically close to the annealed strength of the material, although higher values can be
obtained if the heat input is minimised. Elongation values are normally a little below the parent value,
but the reduction is less than in heat-treatable alloys. Failures are fully ductile, with extensive necking.
For annealed non-heat-treatable alloys (e.g 5xxx in the O condition), failure of cross-weld tensile
alloys can occur anywhere on the sample, although they usually occur away from the weld in the
parent material. Elongation is therefore typically the same as the parent material, and the failure
mode is invariably very ductile. Thus joint efficiencies of 100% can be obtained.
One advantage often quoted for tensile properties in friction stir welds is the very consistent
performance from weld to weld. This is perhaps well illustrated by data from Lockheed Martin,
[270]
where the analysis of a large number of welds in a 2xxx alloy showed that FSW gave rise to a
small increase in average tensile strength, but a very much reduced scatter band. As design of the
component in question was based on minimum strength which can be guaranteed, the higher
repeatability of friction stir welds allowed an extra 20% strength to be used in the design, even though
the average strength of the friction stir welds was not much more than that of fusion welds. It should
be noted that this is due to the low variability in weld properties rather than the incidence of defects.
Typical data are shown in Table 3.

Table 3 Tensile data for variable polarity plasma arc (VPPA) and FSW joints showing benefit
of FSW

Ultimate tensile strength, MPa

Thickness, mm

Form

VPPA

FSW

Average

Minimum

Average

Minimum

51

Plate

358

310

392

378

81-9 8

Extrusion

323

200

394

369

Ideally, the loss of parent material strength in an FSW would be negligible. At present, parent material
properties can only be achieved with annealed alloys which cannot be softened by further heating
during welding. Since loss of strength and hardness is usually related to either overaging in
precipitation hardened alloys, or annealing in work hardened alloys, minimising the heat input should
offer a way of improving properties. However, this approach is limited by the fact that the material
being welded must be hot enough to flow, and in aluminium alloys this temperature will cause
softening.
Heat input can be minimised by several methods for example:
1.
2.
3.
4.

use of more efficient tool designs that require less energy to push them through the weld
use of higher welding speeds and/or lower rotation speeds
use of artificial cooling (water sprays, welding underwater, etc.)
active tool cooling.

Residual stresses
As welded residual stresses
Residual stresses in welds are of great significance in determining weld performance, in particular
fatigue and fracture toughness. In fusion welding, residual stress levels are often at, or very close to,
parent material or weld metal yield strength. In solid state welds the residual stresses can be
substantially lower, although this is not necessarily so. In comparing residual stress levels in friction
stir welds, great care must be taken in interpretation of the results, as there are several techniques
which are commonly used. Determination of residual stresses is a complex area, and an authoritative
summary of the methods which can be used is beyond the scope of this review. Readers are referred
to other texts for more detailed information on the origins of weld residual stresses, [271,272] as well as
the measurement of residual stresses by destructive (e.g. hole drilling,[273] contour method)[274,275] and
non-destructive (e.g. neutron diffraction,[273,276,277] synchrotron X-ray diffraction[277,278] and magnetic)
[275,279]
techniques.
Several authors have determined residual stresses non-destructively using synchrotron X-ray
diffraction. [180, 280-284]Although different materials were examined, there is broad agreement in the
results, in that the longitudinal stresses tend to show the largest variation, being most tensile in the
HAZ, lower in the nugget and compressive in the parent plate (Fig.35).

Fig.35. Longitudinal residual stress distribution normalised by pin shoulder diameter for
friction stir welds in 7449,[326] 2199,[301] 6082,[54] 2024,[324] and 5083 alloy [54]
Similar trends have been recorded by Staron et al.[285] using neutron diffraction. Destructive methods
such as the contour method,[286,287] the crack compliance method[288] and incremental centre hole
drilling[289] have also been applied.
The characteristic magnitude and profile of the longitudinal stresses across a friction stir weld are
shown in Fig.35 for a range of alloys. The longitudinal stresses are typically much greater than the
transverse. As is clear from the figure, the stresses tend to be tensile over a region extending just
beyond the diameter of the tool shoulder. The tensile region tends to encompass the nugget and TMAZ
and reflects the extent of the hot region beneath the shoulder. The peak stresses are often found just
inside or just beyond the shoulder radius. Often the peak stress lies within the HAZ despite the lower
hardness often found there. Lower level compressive residual stresses are typically found in the parent
plate beyond the HAZ. The depth of the tensile plateau below the tensile peaks and the presence of a
subsidiary peak on the weld centreline appear to be alloy specific. It should also be noted that the
breadth of the tensile region and the magnitude of the stresses vary greatly according to the
processing conditions. For example, much lower stresses than those plotted in Fig.35 are reported for
2024,[290] 5083,[180] and 6013.[281]
Although almost all the attention to date has focused on the variation of longitudinal stresses lateral to
the weld line measured midthickness and midweld length, where the situation can be described as
steady state (e.g. Fig.35), in practice the stress field varies both through thickness and along the
welding direction. The variation through thickness for 20 mm 7449 plate is shown in the upper part
of Fig.36. It is clear that the largest stresses are found near the surface (in this case directly under the
edge of the shoulder). Further the stress field profile broadly follows that of the HAZ and the hardness
variation being narrower at the base where the heat input is less. For plates less than 6 mm thick the
stress field is essentially uniform with depth through thickness. [282] The lower part of Fig.36 shows the
inplane variation in residual stress for a 3 mm thick 6082/5083 weld. It is clear that, in the case of the
100 mm long weld shown, the largest stresses are not found midlength but continue to rise towards
the end position. This is in contrast to TIG welding similarly sized plates where the stresses the fell
towards the end of the plate as the plate warmed up and thus the mismatch between weld and plate
decreased.[277,291] Also, in contrast to TIG welding, [291]the stresses around the start and end positions
are not particularly high. Both these observations may be the result of lower heat input associated
with FSW. The stresses are not symmetrical across the weld line in Fig.36 because the stresses for the
6082 are lower in the nugget than for the 5083, [54] due to dissolution of the hardening precipitates

there. The transverse stresses are generally much lower than those in the longitudinal direction with
the most significant tensile stresses (about 50-100 MPa) found around the exit hole.

Fig.36. Longitudinal and transverse residual stress variation: above, plate cross-section in
20 mm thick AA7449/7449 friction stir weld (tool diameter 34 mm); [326] below, at
midthickness for dissimilar 6082/5083 weld (tool diameter 18 mm) in 3 mm thick
plate[54] (weld started at white spot and finished at black spot). In both cases advancing
side is on right
If the stress is measured, as is often the case, on a cross-weld sample extracted from a larger welded
plate, account should be taken of the possibility of stress relaxation. In essence a weld length
approximately eight times the diameter of the tool must be retained if 90% of the residual stresses
are to be retained on cutting out the testpiece. [266,286] This criterion is often not fulfilled, which may
explain the low stresses observed in some studies. [281,286,292]
To understand how the residual stresses arise, finite element modelling (FEM) provides a picture of
how the stresses evolve during welding. In this respect it is important to note that current FEMs for
predicting residual stresses tend to ignore the mechanical stirring effect of the tool and regard it
simply as a heat source.[293-296] Such models involve a decoupled heat transfer and a subsequent
thermomechanical analysis. An attempt has been made to incorporate the mechanical effect of the
tool using FEM, representing the down force and torque loading elastically, without incorporating large
plastic strains.[128] However, to take proper account of the material flow around the pin an arbitrary
Lagrangian-Eulerian formulation must be applied to avoid excessively severe distortions of the mesh.
[152]
Fluid dynamics based models are now beginning to emerge capable of predicting residual stresses,
which explicitly take into account fluid flow.[119, 297,298] Unlike purely thermal models, these are capable
of predicting differences in stress between the advancing and retreating sides of the weld. Typically
very little difference is either predicted or observed in practice; however, Fig.37 does show slightly
high measured and predicted stresses on the advancing side and this observation is supported by the
work of others.[299]

Fig.37. Measured and predicted effect of traverse speed and rotation speed: experimental
data are for 2199,[301] predictions for 7050 [297]
The evolution of longitudinal stress as the tool passes is depicted in Fig.38. It demonstrates that
ahead of the tool the compressive stress caused by the expanding hot material impinges on the
compressive yield stress locus, causing local plastic straining. Just behind the tool longitudinal tensile
stresses begin to generate as the weld material cools. Initially stress development near to the weld
line is limited by the low tensile yield stress (Fig.38c). This local tensile plastic straining at the weld
line results in the characteristic 'M' shape typically observed in the welded plate (Fig.38d), as the hot
region plastically deformed in compression, to a greater width, ahead of the tool becomes stressed in
tension as it cools behind the tool. As the tool travels forwards and the temperature falls, the tensile
stress level builds up at a rate slower than that at which the yield stress rises so that a point is
reached very soon after the tool has passed when no further yielding occurs and the increasing misfit
is then accommodated elastically. As the tensile stresses develop near the weld line these are
balanced by a compressive stress towards the edges of the plate. Lombard et al.[300] have noted that
for AA 5083 the width of the tensile region increases and the maximum tensile stress decreases with
increasing heat input. In agreement with experiment, [180, 284,300,301] the residual stress distribution has
been found by modelling[294,295] to be dependent on the welding traverse and rotational speeds
(Fig.37). Despite the fact that the parametric study is for AA2199, [301] and the modelling is for AA7050,
[297]
the responses in Fig.37 show a high level of agreement. In both cases the 'M' profile characteristic
of FSW shows a small secondary peak centred on the weld line, the peak situated just outside the tool
shoulder is slightly higher on the advancing side and the width of the tensile region increases, and the
magnitude of the tensile region decreases, as the traverse speed is lowered and the rotation speed is
increased. This is believed to be because the high heat input associated with low traverse speeds and
high rotation speeds (see Fig.5) leads to more extensive softening in the weld region. This in turn
results in overall reduction in magnitude of the longitudinal residual stress, but a wider tensile stress
zone (Fig.37). The residual stress field is governed primarily by the as-welded yield strength
distribution in the stir zone, HAZ and TMAZ. On the other hand, the natural aging process, while
strongly affecting the final weld strength, shows minimal influence on the residual stress. [54, 297]

Fig.38. Effect of external mechanical tensioning (given as percentage of parent plate yield
stress) on predicted longitudinal residual stress profiles for AA2024-T6 plate friction stir
welded at 770 rev min-1and 195 mm min-1 (tensile and compressive yield loci are shown as
dashed lines)[296]
a) as heat source approaches and compressive stresses form;
b) directly through tool centre, showing resultant reduction in thermal strain by
compressive yielding;
c) 8 mm behind centre of pin and at edge of shoulder, as heat source retreats, material
begins to cool and tensile yielding occurs;
d) final stress state after removal of tensioning loads

Residual stress control

Residual stresses arise from the accumulation of misfit between the weld region and the remaining
plate. There are a number of means by which the misfit, and hence the residual stresses, can be
manipulated, e.g.
1.
thermal tensioning
2.
mechanical tensioning
3.
subsequent processing treatments.
One of the earliest reported applications of thermal tempering was by Greene and Holzbaur,[302] who in
1946 used superimposed temperature gradients to achieve reduced residual stresses in longitudinal
butt welds in ship hull structures. Local induction heating has also been investigated for residual stress
improvement.[303] Michaleris and Sun[304] and Dull et al.[305] have applied thermal tensioning to reduce
buckling distortion, whereas Dong et al.[306]developed an in-process thermal stretching technique for
effective mitigation of residual stresses and distortion on repair welding of aluminium panels.
Barber et al.,[307] van der Aa et al.[308] and Williams and co-workers[285,309-311]have applied local cooling to
FSW, using either solid or liquid CO2 trailing the heat source, as a means of creating dynamically
controlled low residual stress and distortion free welds; others have used water jets. [312]

Several mechanical tensioning systems have been proposed. Yang et al.[313,314] have mechanically
compressed the weld on cooling using a pair of rollers positioned on either side of the weld line,
reducing both residual stress and buckling distortion. Williams and coworkers [79, 296,315] have shown that
the application of global, or far field, mechanical tensioning externally during the welding process can
greatly reduce the tensile residual stresses in FSW joints. In global mechanical tensioning a load is
applied uniformly along opposite ends of the plates prior to clamping the parts for welding, so that a
uniform tensile stress is maintained in the two butted plates parallel to the weld line. The clamping
and tensioning loads are then released after the FSW tool has traversed along the join line forming a
weld. Perhaps counter intuitively, Williams et al.[315] found that high levels of mechanical tensioning
parallel to the welding direction can actually reverse the state of stress, so that compressive
longitudinal residual stresses are found in the weld region.
Global mechanical tensioning operates by reducing the compressive bow wave ahead of the travelling
heat source and increasing the tensile plastic strain developed in the hot zone trailing the weld. Figure
38 indicates that for low levels of tensioning (<40%) a reduction in the compressive plastic strain field
ahead of the tool, as the hot material expands, is mainly responsible for reducing the final residual
stresses. At higher tensioning loads, little or no compressive misfit develops ahead of the tool.
Instead, larger tensile plastic straining of the softened hot material after the tool has passed causes a
tensile misfit, or 'over tensioning', once the tensioning forces are removed. This results in the
compressive longitudinal stresses seen along the weld line (Fig.39b). Taken together, these effects
give rise to the observed approximately linear reduction in longitudinal weld stresses with tensioning
level and zero residual stresses can be engineered at tensioning levels of about 40-50%, depending on
the material and welding conditions. The results indicate that while the level of residual stresses
present in the untensioned case is a function of the alloy, the rate of residual stress reduction brought
about by mechanical tensioning is essentially alloy independent (Fig.39b). In all cases studied it is
essentially linear with respect to the tensioning load, so that the tensioning required to reduce the
weld stresses to zero can be calculated directly from the stresses present in the untensioned case. For
thin plates a guideline rule is that 1 MPa of tensioning reduces the tensile stress by approximately 1
MPa. Global tensioning was found to be less effective at greater depths in thick plates. Furthermore a
reduction of the bending distortion and an increase in angular distortion was observed with increased
tensioning, while no effects on the weld microstructure and hardness were observed.

Fig.39. a) comparison of measured (left)[266] and predicted (right) longitudinal stress

profiles for AA7449-W51 welded plates as function of tensioning level (0, 5, 10, 20, 30% of
parent alloy yield stress): dotted profile represents predicted untensioned (0%) case for
which there were no measured results;
b) residual stress at midthickness near weld line as function of applied global tensioning
level for various alloys [290,326]
Besides post-weld heat treatment,[316] there are a number of post-weld treatments by which the misfit
introduced during FSW can be reduced to lower the residual stress level, or replaced with another one
leading to beneficial residual stresses. Burnishing, [317,318] laser and conventional shot peening[263, 319321]
have been used to introduce new misfits and thus modify the near surface state of friction stir

welds - introducing compressive stresses that are beneficial to the fatigue and stress corrosion
behaviour.[319,322]
It is also possible to apply the roller tensioning method described above after welding. [323] Whereas
during welding two rollers are passed on either side of the weld, a single roller approximately equal in
width to the FSW tool shoulder can be rolled along the weld line once the weld has cooled. Recent
stress measurements suggest that this approach is much more effective than when applied during
welding (Fig.40) with loads in excess of 15 kN leading to compressive weld stresses for 2199. [324] This
compares with little effect during welding using two rollers and a combined down force of 75 kN. By
contrast post-weld mechanical tensioning is much less effective than that applied during welding. [296]

Fig.40. Longitudinal midthickness residual stress profiles as function of post-weld roller

tensioning load for AA2199 friction stir weld: [324] roller is shown inset, its footprint is
indicated by horizontal solid line
Distortion
There is of course a strong link between residual stresses and distortion in welds. In most cases, FSW
of aluminium produces low distortion levels compared with arc welding. However, significant distortion
can occur in friction stir welds, in particular in thin gauge welds where the design imparts an
asymmetry in restraint or heat sink. Preliminary studies show that thermal and mechanical tensioning
methods used to control stress are also effective at reducing longitudinal distortion. [79, 325,326]
In summary, residual stresses and distortion in friction stir welds in aluminium alloys can be
engineered to be considerably less than those typical of fusion welds. The characteristic tensile
longitudinal stress tends to be of lower magnitude but broader in extent the greater the heat input. As
a solid state welding process there is considerable scope for manipulating the state of stress during
welding. Thermal and mechanical tensioning have been found to be successful in reducing and even
reversing the state of stress. Roller tensioning after welding has also been found to be successful in
lowering the tensile residual stresses.

Fatigue
As with other mechanical property data, care needs to be taken to ensure that full information on the
test procedure is available. In particular, in some fatigue tests, the surface of friction stir welds is
dressed to remove flash and the surface markings. Occasionally even more material is removed, and
this is acceptable if the weld in question is machined in the same way in service. When comparing
data, R values should be checked to ensure they are the same especially in cases where residual
stresses may exist in the testpiece, but these are not always reported. Examination of the literature
has shown that the following generalisations can be made:

1.

in simple S-N tests on cross-weld samples, the fatigue performance of friction stir butt welds is
typically less good than that of the parent material tested under the same conditions. [327,328] Many
studies have found that after milling the top surface, the fatigue performance of 2014, 6013 and
7475 FSW joints approached that of the parent alloys, [329-331] yet in other studies[332] the
properties remain significantly below parent material benchmarks

2.

the fatigue performance of friction stir butt welds generally comfortably exceeds that of
comparable fusion welds,[93, 226, 330,331,333,334] a trend reported for many alloy grades

3.

failure is normally (but not always) associated with an initiation event at the geometric stress
concentration at the side of the weld on the upper surface; [355] where this has been machined
away, failure normally initiates in the region of lowest strength. For many alloy groups, these two
locations are very close together

4.

residual stresses can play a significant role in the fatigue behaviour191,336-338 and vary
according to crack test geometry.[339] In this respect it should be noted that the dimensions of
most crack test specimens lie between the limits for negligible and complete relaxation of the
residual stresses introduced by FSW.[266]
In general, for machined welds, for which surface finish is not an important influence, three factors
appear to play a dominant role in the fatigue performance: residual stress, microstructure and defects.
As a consequence, without a detailed picture of all three and an understanding of their interactions, it
is difficult to discern simple trends as a function of FSW processing conditions from the literature.
Indeed, because of the overriding and interacting importance of these three poorly reported factors
much of the data appears inconsistent and contradictory.
Dalle Donne et al.[338] found that residual stress was by far the most important effect in their compact
tension fatigue study in which fatigue crack propagation varied strongly as a function
of R (maximum/minimum stress ratio). In agreement with others [340,341] they found that once residual
stress was taken into account very little variation in fatigue performance was observed as a function of
FSW process parameters.
Naturally, as the crack grows the residual stresses redistribute. This can be especially important in
considering residual stress effects on crack growth across the weld line (i.e. transverse) because the
longitudinal stresses are typically the largest (see above). A number of researchers have calculated
the effect of residual stress redistribution on the stress intensity factor for cracks growing through
FSW joints.[299,342] Figure 41 shows the initial residual stress field in an FSW testpiece, as determined
by the crack compliance technique, along with the contribution to the stress intensity arising from the
residual stresses.[299] It is clear that the contribution can be very significant.

Fig.41. Residual stresses in 32 mm thick 2024 friction stir weld testpiece, measured by
crack compliance technique (horizontal dashed line indicates compressive yield strength of

material)[299]
a) initial residual stress before crack (solid line) and contribution of crack to stress
intensity factor (dashed line) as function of crack growth for transverse crack;
b) corresponding residual stress redistribution ahead of crack tip
In general the refined microstructure characteristic of FSWs leads to improved fatigue properties
compared with fusion welds.[226, 331,343]
Unsurprisingly, the presence of certain defects, especially root flaws such as zig zag kissing bonds
containing oxide defects, can compromise fatigue performance.[161, 343-347] James et al.
[348,349] comment on planar onion ring defects associated with the weld nugget that can accelerate
the link-up of cracks in 5083 and 5383. Dickerson and Przydatek[350] suggest that root flaws up to
035 mm deep are tolerable without a significant loss in performance when compared to nominally
flaw free welds. Widener et al.[351] found that for FSW 2024 once defects were eliminated by careful
process control similar fatigue lives were obtained across a wide range of process parameters.
Effect of alloy system
The plethora of fatigue studies can be broken down by alloy system.
Extensive research has been carried out on 2xxx alloys.[343,346,351-353] For
example, Fig.42 compares compact tensile crack propagation tests through welded and parent (TL:
transverse-longitudinal section) 2024-T351 material (cracks parallel to the weld direction). The lowest
threshold K values were found for cracks propagating in the HAZ, which corresponds to a region of
minimum hardness. By contrast, cracks propagating through the weld grew at rates 10 times slower
than those of the parent plate. The largest threshold K values corresponded to the TMAZ, which was
some 15 times that for the parent plate. All the data appear to converge at large K. To investigate
the origin of these differences, the residual stresses were relieved by over 90% by a 2% stretch
normal to the weld direction, which was insufficient to appreciably affect the microstructures. The fact
that the fatigue crack growth rates for weld line and TMAZ material subsequently coincide with those
for the parent plate was taken as evidence that the differences in crack growth rate were primarily due
to residual stress. After stretching, the crack growth rate in the HAZ material remains inferior to
parent and weld metal, which may be a microstructural effect. For thumbnail cracks growing across
the welds, the opposite effect was observed with the slowest rates corresponding to the HAZ and the
fastest in the TMAZ. This is consistent with the hypothesis that the residual stresses control fatigue
crack growth resistance since the longitudinal stresses in 2024 are normally significantly tensile, with
the TMAZ having the largest tensile stresses and the HAZ the compressive or low tensile stresses
(see Fig.35). Milan et al.[354] found that under transverse cracking compressive residual stresses
increase fatigue resistance in 2024 until the more brittle weld region is reached.

Fig.42. Crack growth data for FSW in 2024-T351 for cracks growing parallel to weld in CT
samples:[341]plots are for cracks located at various distances from weld line propagating
parallel to weld a) in as-welded condition;
b) after 2% stretching (filled and open symbols correspond to different samples)
A number of studies have been undertaken on 5xxx series alloys. [336,337,355-359] James et al.[348,349] found
that lower welding power (but sufficient to give 'adequate' plasticisation for a good weld bond to be
made) gives the highest observed fatigue lives. However they found little correlation between the
static and dynamic performance indicators, suggesting that crack path effects associated with onion
skin defects are the primary cause of fatigue crack initiation and growth.
Most of the work concerning the fatigue properties of 6xxx series alloys focuses on 6055, [357] 6056,
[316,360]
6061,[334,336,361] and 6082.[316, 333,334,340,357,362,363] It has been found that fatigue crack growth rates
for compact tension specimens in the dynamically recrystallised zone are lower than for the parent
metal especially at low DK. As in other systems this has been ascribed to the beneficial effects of
compressive residual stresses in competition with detrimental grain refinement that brings about
intergranular failure.[361]
Some fatigue crack growth data have been reported for 7xxx alloys. [191, 339,353] Jata et al.[191] carried out
eccentrically (or extended) loaded single edge tension tests on 7050-T7451 with the crack running
through different regions parallel to the weld direction. They found that, at a load ratio of 033, fatigue
crack propagation in the weld nugget region is inferior, while the growth rate in the HAZ is superior to
that of the parent (Fig.43). On the basis of crack closure, fractography, microstructure and residual
stresses they concluded that compressive residual stresses dominate fatigue crack growth in the HAZ,
whereas for the fine (1-5m) grain dynamically recrystallised weld nugget region, microstructure and
intergranular failure mechanism dominate. This observation is corroborated by a tendency for
differences in fatigue crack growth rates to become smaller at a load ratio of 07 (Fig.43). Kumagai et
al.[364]found that for 7050 the fatigue strength was close to that of the base metal with fracture in the
softer HAZ.

Fig.43. Comparison of fatigue crack growth rates in laboratory air between weld nugget and
HAZ for friction stir welds in 7050-T7451 plate at load ratios R=033 and 07: specimens
were in as FSW+T6 condition [191]
Lap welds
There is much less information available on lap welds, and comparison with welds made by other
processes is not possible at present. However, recent work by Ericsson and Sandstrm [365] has shown
that improved tool designs which increase the volume of disturbed metal at the interface, and which
minimise the plate thinning and hooking defects associated with inadequately optimised lap welding
can lead to significant improvements. Similarly, recent work by Thomas et al.[366] has reported
promising results for lap welds in 5083-H111 made using an advanced tool design. Friction stir welded
lap joints in 2024-T351,[367] and 7075-T7351,[368] have shown improved fatigue performance over
mechanically fastened joints of similar geometry when tested under similar conditions. However,
Shepherd has indicated that in 2024-T351 lap welds, an improvement over bolted joints is only
obtained after weld surface removal.[369] Christner et al.[92] have published information on fatigue of lap
welded joints in thin gauge 2024-T351, and found that fatigue properties equalled or exceeded those
of bolted joints. There is substantial evidence that more complex tool motions may also be useful in
improving lap weld quality.[370] As discussed above, single lap joints inevitably contain two crack-like
regions, which can be straight or deflected (termed hooking, seeFig.18). Fersini[371] has considered
these regions as cracks in order to estimate the fatigue lifetime using FEM. The lifetime of the
specimen is the time necessary for one of these cracks to propagate up to a critical length. Fatigue
efficiency of some 15% of the static strength was estimated, the cracks failing under a mixture of
mode I and mode II.
Fatigue extension strategies
Until recently, little attention has been paid to fatigue improvement techniques. Most of the attention
has been focused on the use of mechanical surface treatments designed to place the near surface
region into a state of residual compression. Laser and shot peening have been examined. [263, 319321]
Typically shot peening introduces compressive residual stresses to a depth of around 200 m, but
laser peening can introduce residual stresses to a depth in excess of 1 mm. In some cases shot
peening has been found to be effective,[319,321] whereas in others[263]only laser peening provided a
significant increase (~120% compared with 10% for shot peening) in fatigue life. Low plasticity
burnishing[317,322, 372] can also introduce deep (>1 mm) compressive residual stresses. Jayaraman et al.
[322]
report increases of 80% in the high cycle fatigue endurance of aluminium alloy friction stir welds.
In summary, although good fatigue results are consistently obtained with FSW, it is premature for
design codes and joint classifications to be relaxed for friction stir welds, although this may in due
course be justified. Lomolino et al. have collected and statistically analysed fatigue data on FSW for a
range of alloys to derive a first set of reference fatigue curves. [373]

Fracture toughness
Fracture toughness is not normally a problem in aluminium alloys, but there are nevertheless areas
where it is important, in particular at very low temperatures such as those encountered in cryogenic
structures, or in exterior surfaces of airframes. Fracture toughness has been studied using a number
of testing configurations for alloys including 2014, [374,375] 2024,[257, 376] 2139,[116, 377] 2195,[378]378 5083,
[374,379]
6061,[257,258] 7075,[374] and 7449.[254, 380].
Mochizuki et al.[379] found that for 5083-O, in contrast to hardness and static strength, the Charpy
impact energy and critical crack tip opening displacement (CTOD) in the friction stir weld are much
higher than those corresponding to the parent metal or the HAZ. This was ascribed to the fact that the
fine grained microstructure in the stir zone helps to increase ductile crack initiation and propagation
resistance.
Dawes et al.[374] investigated the R curve behaviour of 2014A, 5083 and 7075; typical data are shown
in Fig.44. This shows that the fracture toughness in the nugget and the HAZ/TMAZ region exceeded
that of the parent material, presumably because of the very fine grain structures. This effect was
found for all alloys tested, although the magnitude of the difference varied between alloy types. von
Strombeck et al.[259] obtained similar results on 2024-T351, 5005-H14 and 6061-T6 alloys using a
CTOD parameter to measure toughness rather than the J parameter used by Dawes. Only 2024 joints
exhibited similar or slightly lower fracture toughness than the parent alloy. This behaviour was
attributed to changes in the characteristics of the inclusion and precipitates population. Supporting
these observations, Brinkmann et al.[258] have reported that the fracture toughness of the nugget in 3
mm 6061-T6 friction stir welds (and repair welds) exceeds that of the parent material by a
considerable margin.
A number of studies on the fracture toughness of 2195-T8 have given broadly similar results.
[377,378,382]
Kroninger and Reynolds in particular studied R curve behaviour in 2195. [378] The observed
improvement in R curve behaviour for weld line and nugget seen in Fig.45 is ascribed primarily to
microstructural origins: these regions being solution treated and naturally aged by the tool giving
greater toughness than the overaged HAZ and peak aged parent. The poor response of the VPPA weld
is ascribed to brittle solidification products absent in the FSW.

Fig.44. Toughness data for 2014-T6 friction stir welds [381]

Fig.45. Comparison of R curves for cracks growing through parent plate, weld centreline,
weld nugget and tool shoulder regions of 2195 friction stir weld, and for VPPA weld
centreline [378]
More recently Kristensen et al.[267] published limited data on 6 mm thick 2024-T3, 5083-H111 and
6082-T6 alloys. Conventional CTOD tests at room temperature showed that the fracture toughness of
the nugget in all cases equalled (for 2024-T3), or exceeded, the parent material values, in contrast to
the R curve behaviour reported by von Strombeck et al.[259] Mochizuki et al.[379] studied the
toughness of welds in 25 mm thick 5083-O at ambient temperatures and at -196C. At both
temperatures, the toughness of the stir zone exceeded the toughness of the parent plate by a
substantial margin. HAZ toughness was slightly above that of the parent material toughness.
A good example of the importance of microstructure for toughness is given by the work of Derry and
Robson[254,380] on FSWs in 7449-TAF. Failure is predominantly intergranular, with a low level of
transgranular failure through microvoid coalescence. This is because the metastable ' precipitates are
semicoherent with the matrix and therefore allow dislocations to pass through them, resulting in
inhomogeneous slip and stress concentrations where slip bands meet the grain boundaries. Grain
boundary failure is exacerbated by low strength precipitate free zones at the boundaries. In the HAZ,
precipitate coarsening and transformation to incoherent equilibrium precipitates means that
dislocations are held up, leading to more homogeneous deformation. Thus failure occurs by
conventional nucleation and growth of voids at coarse intermetallics rather than at grain boundaries,
and consequently toughness is higher. In the weld nugget, temperatures are sufficient to cause
precipitate dissolution (Fig.27) and subsequently natural aging on cooling. The resulting fine
dispersion of Gunier-Preston zones and g9 precipitates leads to intergranular failure in the nugget by
the same mechanism as in the parent material. In fact, the situation is worsened by the increase in
grain boundary area and the coarsened grain boundary particles mean failure is wholly intergranular.
As a consequence the HAZ is eight times tougher than the parent and the nugget half as tough, as
determined by Kahn tear testing. These effects can be predicted for the HAZ in terms of simple
hardness[383] models simply by assuming toughness to be inversely proportional to hardness.
In summary, all the results confirm that microstructural factors play a determining role in fracture
toughness. Typically the FSW nugget zone shows a higher toughness than the parent alloys. This is in
contrast to the fatigue behaviour where residual stresses dominate, presumably because the plastic
strain washes out any stored residual stresses. It is noteworthy that as well as the expected
correlation between increasing hardness and strength and decreasing fracture toughness across FSW
in three alloys systems, Dawes has also found remarkably good correlation between Charpy data and
more sophisticated fracture mechanics J integral test methods[374] (Fig.46).

Fig.46. Charpy energy-toughness correlations for friction stir welds in various alloys [381]

Corrosion
It is well established that microstructure is an important factor in determining the corrosion behaviour
of aluminium alloys.[384] A great deal of attention has been focused on the Cu containing 2xxx and
7xxx series (e.g. 2024,[48, 385-390] 7010, 7050, 7075),[385,388,391-393] which show that the nugget becomes
sensitised (Table 4). The severe themomechanical processing refines the grain structure and alters the
precipitation distribution and chemistry, particularly near the grain boundaries (Tables 4 and 5). The
relationship between microstructure and corrosion for 2024 is summarised in the form of a timetemperature-corrosion map[384,410] in Fig.47. From this it is clear that the maximum thermal excursion
in the FSW weld region is above the knee in the time-temperature-corrosion curve and the cooling
rate sufficiently slow for pitting and intergranular corrosion to occur.
Table 4 Summary of corrosion observations for FSW Al alloys

Allo Corroding
Mechanism
Test
Ref
y
zone
2024 TMAZ
Exfoliation
ASTM G34
48
Nugget
Pitting/blistering
Intergranular/pitting Immersion
Nugget
48
(150m)
(NaCl + H2O2
HAZ/parent Pitting to 150m
Immersion
HAZ
Intergranular
385,394
(NaCl)
Intergranular attack
Gel
(low rotation spends
Nugget and
visualisation
in nugget/high
395,396
HAZ
and Immersion
speeds
(NaCL + H2O2)
predominantly HAZ)
Nugget/HA Passive Pitting
Polarisation
397
Z Parent
curves and
electrochemical
impedance

spectroscopy in
NaCl
Slight pitting at
bottom of nugget,
2219 Parent
overall better than
parent
Pitting +
2139 Parent
intergranular
Even pitting across
No
2195
sample or weld
preference
better than parent
Welds show lower
5083 Parent
pitting tendency
5456 Nugget

Preferential to
advancing side

6082

Even pitting across

sample

Intergranular
corrosion
Intergranular
7010 HAZ
corrosion
Nugget,
Intergranular
7050
TMAZ/HAZ corrosion
6013 Parent

7075 HAZ

Intergranular

HAZ
HAZ
TMAZ/HAZ
boundary
7108 TMAZ
7150 TMAZ

Localised
intergranular
corrosion

Immersion
(NaCl)

398,399

Immersion
(NaCl + H2O2

116

Immersion
(NaCl)

386,398

EXCO (KCI,
400
KNO3, HNO3)
Immersion
(phosphoric
395
acid)
Immersion
(NaCl + acetic 401
acid)
Immersion
402
(NaCl)
Immersion
385
(NaCl)
Immersion test 213,392,403,404,40
in NaCl solution 5
Immersion
(NaCl-KNO3391
HNO3)
Immersion
392,404,406
Pitting
407
potential cell
Salt spray

408

ASTM G34
EXCO

409

Immersion

401

Table 5 Typical relationship between microstructure, significant localised corrosion

mechanisms and main investigation techniques for high strength aluminium alloy friction
stir welds [414]

Zone

Microstructure

Strengthening ppts
Small grain
Parent boundary phases
Narrow ppt free
zones

Form of
localised
corrosion
Pitting
Intergranular
corrosion
Other corrosion
phenomena

Investigation technique

Polarisation techniques, spray

tests, droplet cell methods,
other methods

Corrosion immersion tests:

appropriate for the
investigation of intergranular
Coarse intragranular Intergranular
corrosion if combined with
ppts
corrosion
microstructure investigations
HAZ
Coarse grain
Intersubgranular (optical or SEM in back
boundary phases
corrosion
scattered mode)
Wide ppt free zones Pitting
Polarisation techniques: not
appropriate for a clear
discrimination of the extent of
the intergranular corrosion
Intergranular
Variable dimensions corrosion
TMAZ of the ppts and grain Intersubgranular As for HAZ
boundary phases
corrosion
Pitting
General absence of
Immersion, polarisation tests
intragranular ppts
with microstructural
and ppt free zones Pitting
investigations (optical or SEM
Nugge
For some alloys,
Intergranular
in back scattered mode)
t
presence of
corrosion
Conventional methods
intragranular ppts
appropriate for pitting
and ppt free zones
corrosion

Fig.47. Time-temperature-corrosion plot for 2024 friction stir weld based on interrupted
quench experiments, showing predominant corrosion mechanisms determined on basis of
accelerated corrosion tests on sheet:410 time-temperature band added by Lumsden [384] to
indicate conditions typical of most sensitised FSW HAZ region
Localised corrosion
Pitting, the removal of metal at localised sites, is a common corrosion mechanism in FSW Al alloys.
The tendency for pitting is characterised by the pitting potential, namely, the potential at which the
protective anodic film breaks down. Connolly et al.[395] and Paglia et al.[407] have used microelectronic cells to map this spatially. The former team used a micro-electrochemical test set-up
(droplet cell) comprising a three electrode cell within a fine (10 m to 1 mm) pipette mounted on an
optical microscope for precise positioning to delineate the variation in pitting potential as a function of
position across the microstructural zones. For 5456 the breakdown potential for parent, HAZ and
TMAZ were similar; however, the nugget was significantly lower in accordance with the higher level of
corrosion attack found there. This occurs due to preferential attack of -phase precipitates.
Interestingly the advancing side of the nugget was found to corrode preferentially. For the 2024 welds
discussed above the pitting potential (Fig.48) was found to vary with increasing heat input,[396] again
in accordance with Fig.47. At low heat inputs the whole TMAZ is most affected, but with increasing
heat input the HAZ becomes significantly more affected than either the parent or nugget. Gel
visualisation comprising agar, NaCl and universal indicator can also be used to highlight oxygen
reduction (blue/green) and hydrolysis of metal ions (yellow).[395] It can be seen in Fig.49 that this
method is in good agreement with the pitting potential results, showing increased corrosion in the HAZ
as the heat input is increased, the nugget becoming less affected.

Fig.48. Pitting breakdown potential measured using droplet cell with NaCl across five 2024
FSWs described in Fig.49 [396]

Fig.49. Macrographs (left) and corresponding gel visualisations (right) of corrosion attack
on cross-sections of 2024 friction stir welds after immersion in 01M NaCl for 24 h: welds
were produced at different speeds and are arranged from top to bottom in order of
decreasing heat input [396]
There is a general consensus that for copper containing alloys (e.g. 2024, 7xxx) intergranular attack
(see Table 4) is encouraged by the precipitation of a network of Cu rich intermetallics at grain
boundaries (Fig.50b), which lead to locally depleted zones that are vulnerable to localised attack,
[391,394,395,411]
This vulnerability has been linked to the lowering of the pitting potential (Fig.48). For 7xxx
and 2xxx alloys intergranular corrosion is thus generally preferentially observed in the TMAZ/nugget
and HAZ depending on the heat input (Table 4). Figure 50a shows a scanning electron micrograph of a
2024 weld following immersion in Exco test solution for 8 h, revealing a severely corroded, narrow
band in the HAZ. On the right side of the corrosion band, i.e. in the parent alloy, little development of
corrosion is observed. Conversely, on the left side of the corrosion band, i.e. within the TMAZ, a
number of randomly distributed pits, of dimension 50-300 m had developed. Because 7075 contains
less Cu than 7050, the enrichment of Mg and depletion of Cu is less, leading to lower susceptibility.
[412]
For other alloy systems, for example 2195, 2219, 5983, 5456, 6061, 6081, the proclivity for the
weld region to corrode is much reduced being more similar to that of the parent (Table 4). Hu and
Melekis[398] ascribe the better pitting resistance of 2219 compared with 2195 to the lower Cu
concentration. Generally the welded zones for 2219 and 2195 show more non-uniform pitting, but
better corrosion behaviour than the parent alloys.
Exfoliation occurs where corrosion products having a larger volume than the metal they consume
produce a wedge-like action.[384] It is not common in the weld nugget because large flat grains are
much more susceptible than the fine grains typical of FSW. Exfoliation corrosion is usually tested by
exposure to an oxidising acidic chloride (Exco) solution using ASTM G34.
In summary, corrosion of FSWs in 2xxx and 7xxx alloys continues to be a challenge; those interested
are directed to more comprehensive reviews of the subject. [413,414] It should be borne in mind that
FSWs will naturally be associated with residual stresses; these may well play a role in corrosion
studies. Finally, some work has been undertaken on the corrosion performance of dissimilar systems.
[388,415-418]
In such cases there is clearly an opportunity for galvanic corrosion in the nugget, for example
2024 is anodic with respect to 7010. [388]

Fig.50. Scanning electron micrographs of intergranular attack on 2024 friction stir weld [394]
a) general view following corrosion testing in Exco solution for 8 h;
b) network of CuMgAl2;
c) close-up of intergranular corrosion
Stress corrosion
The location for failure by stress corrosion cracking or corrosion fatigue is often the HAZ of 7075 and
2049 alloys or the TMAZ/HAZ for 7050 and 5454 (Table 4). If the weld is not particularly susceptible,
as for 2195 and 2219 (Table 4), failure typically occurs in the softest region of the weld. Intergranular
failures are usually associated with the sensitisation of the microstructure. Increased pitting corrosion
may act as an initial stage for intergranular corrosion.[414] In constant strain rate tests, FSWs in
7075 have been found to exhibit much better environmental cracking resistance than 7050,
[404,419] failure occurring in the HAZ in accordance with the increased susceptibility there (Table 4).
Strategies to reduce corrosion susceptibility
Short term post-weld heat treatments (artificial aging) (PWHT/PWAA), with thermal exposures similar
to that during welding, may be an efficient way to rehomogenise the sensitised microstructure and
thereby increase the corrosion resistance of the welds.[414] Such treatments may also reduce the
level of residual stresses, thereby lowering susceptibility to stress corrosion. Lumsden et al.
[419] found that 7050 is very sensitive to stress corrosion, exhibiting a ductility just 13% of the in air
ductility when slow strain rate tested (according to ASTM G129)[384] in NaCl solution. Aging for one
week at 100C (equivalent to 10 years natural aging) restored the ductility to 80% of the in air value.
Alloy 7075 was found to be less sensitive to SCC (73% of strain to failure in air), with a T73 post-weld
temper restoring this to 85%. Widener et al.[420] found joining 7075 material originally in the T73
condition followed by PWAA to be preferable (in terms of higher tensile and yield strengths and better
exfoliation corrosion resistance) to welding in the T6 temper condition followed by aging to T73.
Retrogression and re-aging treatments were not found to improve joint properties of T6 material due
to the severity of the overaging in the HAZ caused by the welding process. Merati et al.,
[421] however, did have success with a localised retrogression and re-aging treatment to 7475-T73.
Overall, 4 h at 190C was found both to stabilise the microstructure and to enhance the corrosion
resistance for 7075, with only a slight reduction in tensile strength and the added advantage of
annealing out residual stresses.420 Less precise treatments have been applied using local heating of
joints with torch flames in 7075 and 2219.[414].
The effect of starting temper of the parent material and PWHTs were investigated for FSW joints in
2024.[422] It was found that the exfoliation resistance of FSW Al 2024 joints may be restored through
PWHT to the T81 temper or when initially welded in the T81 temper, followed by naturally aging.

Other approaches to reduce the sensitivity to corrosion include modifications to the tool design; for
example, by using a tool with a scroll shoulder instead of a threaded pin/flat shoulder tool when
welding 7050, the sensitivity to SCC can be eliminated.[423] Other studies have looked at the
minimisation of corrosion through optimisation of the welding procedure for 6xxx alloys.[424]
The effect of chromate, molybdate and cerium nitrate inhibitor additions to NaCl solution were
examined for dissimilar 7075/6056 FSW joints.[425] The chromates were better in terms of inhibition
efficiency and inhibit all regions of the weld area to a similar extent. Though less effective, from an
environmental viewpoint, molybdate and cerate may offer advantages.
Approximately 30 m micro-arc oxidation coatings have been successfully applied to 2219 and 7018
FSW joints subjected to salt spray corrosion.[426]
Other surface treatments shown to be successful include low plasticity burnishing to retard corrosion
fatigue of 2219 FSW joints.[372] An 80% increase in corrosion fatigue performance has been achieved
for the same system by LPB,[322, 427] completely mitigating pitting corrosion damage, with
comparable fatigue perfrmance regardless of salt fog exposure. Laser surface melting has also been
found to be effective in reducing corrosion of 2024.[395]

Comparison with other joining processes

A reasonable volume of data (e.g. Table 3) exists to compare the properties of friction stir welds with
other processes. Consequently, it is now well established that the mechanical properties associated
with FSW joints are generally better than those obtainable in arc welds. However, mechanical
properties are only part of the picture: process economics are also of significance, as is the quality of
the weld which can be reliably obtained. For example, Hori et al.[330] have described work on a
Japanese alloy (6N01) similar to 6005. Comparison of tensile properties with MIG and laser welding
showed no improvement in tensile properties over laser or MIG (in fact FSW performed slightly
worse), but a significant improvement in fatigue performance was reported. Furthermore, the
tolerance on misfit, the remarkably low weld to weld variability and freedom from defects made the
FSW process more attractive than its competition. A further example can be found in a recent study by
Gesto et al.,[84] who compared FSW and GMAW of 6082-T6 for a marine application. They concluded
that FSW is superior in terms of properties and weld quality, but at the price of higher capital costs.
In summary, in many cases improved mechanical properties are only part of a complex decision
making process for selecting FSW. For example, the low defect incidence and low repair rates have
been instrumental in process selection, especially for critical applications such as rocket fuel tanks.
[90,91] The reverse argument is also true. In a number of cases companies have judged the potential
advantages of the process in terms of mechanical properties and weld quality to be outweighed by the
capital costs and other process conversion costs, particularly in situations where an expensive
machine could not be kept fully occupied, or in areas where low cost is the highest priority.

Concluding remarks
Friction stir welding of aluminium is now a mature and robust process, which is becoming increasingly
well established in the fabrication of critical components. It is true to say that FSW has extended the
use of welding in certain materials and applications, in particular in the welding of 2xxx and 7xxx
alloys for the aerospace industry. The qualities making the process attractive include reduced cost,
minimal repair requirement, good properties and total automation leading to a high level of
consistency.
At the present time, FSW can compete with other welding processes for quality of welds and
performance. It should be noted that FSW is still relatively new, and has been in commercial
production for less than 15 years. Nevertheless, progress has been significant, and further
improvements and developments can be expected.

As with fusion welding, FSW is basically a thermal process. Temperatures reached (typically around
500C) are sufficient to cause major microstructural changes in precipitation hardened or work
hardened alloys. Unlike fusion processes, FSW also involves extremely high shear strains and strain
rates, which will have a profound influence on the development of microstructures. The debate on the
relative importance of recovery and recrystallisation continues to be lively, and further work is
required in this area to gain a full understanding of the complex processes and their interactions which
determine microstructures.
Friction stir welding is already one of the most energy efficient processes available, although improved
process developments (in particular better tool designs) will no doubt further reduce the energy
required to make the weld. Now industry has a welding process that can provide high quality and
defect free welds in the high strength 2xxx and 7xxx alloys, development of improved alloys which can
be welded without loss of properties is required, and this is a major challenge for the aluminium
producers.
Although the process is asymmetrical in terms of material movement and heat generation, there is
limited evidence that this has an adverse effect on the properties of the weld. Aluminium is an
excellent conductor of heat, so thermal gradients will rapidly disappear. The significant heat transport
in the rapidly moving material will again help minimise differences. Although many welds will have
slight differences in properties on each side, this is seldom significant, and probably influenced as
much by the thermodynamics and kinetics of the alloys as by the asymmetry of the process.
In a similar vein, there was considerable interest in the early days of FSW in the so called 'onion rings'
in the weld. Several suggestions have been made regarding the origin of these, and evidence has been
found of changes in grain size, texture, precipitation density, composition, etc., the exact mechanism
varying from alloy to alloy. To date, little evidence has emerged to suggest they are harmful, and
indeed their impact on weld performance seems to be very small.
The present review has demonstrated the extensive research effort that continues to progress the
understanding of FSW of aluminium alloys and its influence on their microstructure and properties. It
identifies a number of areas that are worthwhile for further study. From an engineering perspective,
there is a need to investigate the occurrence and significance of flaws in friction stir welds. In
particular, the influence of tool design on flaw occurrence and the development of nondestructive
testing techniques to identify flaws in both lap and butt welds would be beneficial. Metal flow
modelling may have a role to play here, though capturing this aspect of the thermomechanical
behaviour remains a significant challenge. Furthermore, the development of NDT techniques capable
of mapping and locating the defects that arise in FSW is an area requiring further work if they are to
be utilised in safety critical applications.
The review has attempted to outline the process-microstructure-property relationships that need to be
considered when friction stir welding aluminium alloys. While it is clear that FSW of aluminium alloys
has reached a level of maturity that enables commercial exploitation of the technique, much remains
to be done before it is possible intelligently to optimise the process to tailor the microstructure and
residual stress for particular service environments, whether to provide improved tensile, fatigue, creep
or corrosion resistance. Development of greater understanding of friction stir processing on sheet
forming capabilities would also be of interest.
Modelling of heat generation and thermal history is reasonably mature, particularly if the heat input is
measured independently from the machine itself. Microstructure evolution in both heat-treatable and
non-heat-treatable alloys has been modelled at various levels of complexity, enabling prediction of
hardness profiles after a degree of calibration to specific alloys and tempers. Some progress has been
made to package these models for industrial use by the non-expert, and for predicting more difficult
properties such as toughness. Future microstructure modelling challenges include the ability to
consider FS weldability in alloy development programmes, and improved understanding of dissimilar
alloy FSW, particularly for joining aluminium to other alloys such as steel for automotive applications.
Comparisons with other processes are of course inevitable. The main competitors to FSW are MIG and
TIG welding, and laser welding. In terms of heat input, FSW typically introduces more heat per unit

length than laser welding, but less than MIG or TIG. The fact that FSW is basically a machine tool
process, closely related to milling, gives it an advantage of full automation, but at the cost of the
flexibility which can be achieved with MIG and TIG. The absence of a filler in FSW is an advantage in
many cases, but can also be a disadvantage since it prevents the process being used for fillet welds.
The absence of filler also requires a higher standard of preparation in terms of weld gap and fit-up
than fusion processes. Friction stir welding has a much greater range of thickness than any fusion
process (with the exception of electron beam welding). The process has been used to make single
pass welds in thicknesses from about 0 5 to 100 mm. Static mechanical properties in aluminium
alloys are generally related to the heat input, and so FSW generally equals or exceeds the
performance of MIG welds. Dynamic properties are generally better than fusion welds, irrespective of
whether the weld surfaces are dressed. Finally, as FSW is a solid state process, it can cope with any
aluminium alloy, whereas many high strength aluminium alloys are challenging or impossible to weld
by fusion processes. Friction stir welding therefore joins the armoury of welding processes, but it will
not displace other established processes in all applications. It has, however, succeeded in making the
welding of high strength alloys a reality.
In the future, it seems likely that FSW will continue to displace MIG in applications requiring long,
essentially straight welds and is well suited to the joining of aluminium extrusions and panels. It is
expected to encroach more gradually on MIG for lower volume and more complex joints. However,
MIG is likely to be retained in cases requiring a filler or where a manual/portable process is preferred.
The barriers to growth of FSW for Al are primarily high cost of bespoke equipment (almost all
machines built so far have been one-off designs (e.g. Fig.2a), but low cost milling machines can be
modified), under utilisation of expensive equipment, licence fees, lack of familiarity with the process
by customers, plus poor availability of skilled practitioners with industrial experience, regulatory
authorities, etc. All these issues are gradually being eroded, making FSW increasingly attractive. In
addition FSW is becoming indispensible where it is necessary to join different aluminium alloys. Finally,
it is worth pointing to the steeply increasing volume of work looking at FSW of a wide range of
systems beyond aluminium alloys. This suggests that commercial applications of FSW are set to
expand widely in coming years.

Acknowledgements
The authors are deeply indebted to many colleagues within the global FSW community for numerous
direct and indirect contributions to this work, for making available micrographs and figures and for
many useful discussions over the past few years. PLT and AJL were afforded time by TWI to write this
review. PJW is grateful to Dr Altenkirch and Dr Steuwer for assistance in providing some of the data
presented.

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