SPIF of micro-FSWed dissimilar AlMgSi alloy: formability analysis

ABSTRACT

Tailor-welded blanks (TWB) facilitate strategic material placement, ensuring desired materials are positioned appropriately, while single-point incremental forming (SPIF) enables versatile shape manufacturing with minimal tooling. Despite both methods offering customization benefits, their combined potential remains largely unexplored. This study utilized friction stir welding to create one-millimeter-thick similar and tailor-welded blanks from AA6061 and AA6003. The weld quality was ensured through metallurgical analysis and mechanical testing. SPIF of welded blanks exhibited formability comparable to parent materials, free from weld-line movement or fractures in the weld zone during forming. However, TWBs demonstrated formability between their constituting parent materials. Fractures occurred in almost all blanks due to bi-axial stretching in the corner of the D-shape. Investigation into the effect of tool size and geometry revealed that too small tool diameters induced localized deformation, contributing to failure. While flat-bottomed tools exhibited higher material thinning than hemispherical tools.

KEYWORDS:

• Friction
• stir
• welding
• incremental
• forming
• fracture
• tailor
• welded
• weld
• line
• movement
• hemispherical
• flat
• bottomed
• tool

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Bhilai, India, for aiding this study by providing experimental research and analysis facilities. They would also like to thank the Science and Engineering Research Board, Government of India, for financial assistance to carry out this research work (SRG/2020/000556).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Science and Engineering Research Board, Government of India [SRG/2020/000556].