Influence of the Tool Shoulder Contact Conditions on the Material Flow During Friction Stir Welding

Friction stir welding (FSWing) is a solid-state joining process of special interest in joining alloys that are traditionally difficult to fusion weld. In order to optimize the process, various numeric modeling approaches have been pursued. Of importance to furthering modeling efforts is a better understanding of the contact conditions between the workpiece and the weld tool. Both theoretical and experimental studies indicate the contact conditions between the workpiece and weld tool are unknown, possibly varying during the FSW process. To provide insight into the contact conditions, this study characterizes the material flow in the FSW nugget by embedding a lead (Pb) wire that melted at the FSWing temperature of aluminum alloy 2195. The Pb trace provided evidence of changes in material flow characteristics which were attributed to changes in the contact conditions between the weld tool and workpiece, as driven by temperature, as the tool travels the length of a weld seam.