Joints properties in rotary friction welding of AA5083-H112 aluminium alloy

Abstract

Rotary friction welded joints of AA5083-H112 aluminium alloy rods with diameter of 15 mm and length of 50 mm were produced at various rotational speeds. The current research is aimed to understand the static and fatigue properties of welding joints. Several experiments were carried out including macrostructure and microstructure observations, hardness measurements, tensile testing, residual stress measurements by neutron diffraction, rotary bending fatigue tests and fractography. The results showed that the static fracture occurred at the base metal away from the weld metal region for all weld joints under study with the average ultimate tensile strength of 272.7 MPa. In this condition, the joint efficiency was higher than 100%. It was found that the high strength of the weld joints was associated with fine-grained microstructure. On the other hand, fatigue property of the weld was influenced by both welding microstructure and residual stress. This argument was supported by the facts that the initial crack occurred at HAZ at which the residual stress was tensile and then followed by fatigue crack growth from HAZ towards TMAZ.

Keywords:

• Rotary friction welding
• aluminium AA5083
• thermal cycle
• welding joint
• neutron diffraction
• SEM
• rotary bending fatigue
• residual stress

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Badan Pengkajian dan Penerapan Teknologi (BPPT) under grant number: B-01/DIKLAT/BA/DL02/1/2018.