Reinforced and Unreinforced Friction stir welding of AA6061

This book presents the enhancement of mechanical properties of friction stir welded portion of Aluminium alloy 6061 by incorporating additional reinforcing particulates of silicon carbide and aluminium oxide at weld interface. Silicon carbide and aluminium oxide has been added as reinforcement by creating separate geometry, at the edges, where the welding is interface with four different volume proportions such as 10%, 15%, 25% and 30%. Tool steel of H13 grade is used as friction stir welding tool. Quality assessment is carried out by visual inspection and non-destructive testing using florescent and radiography to reveal the surface and volumetric defects. Mechanical testing including tensile test, impact test, bend test and hardness test were conducted to study the behavior of reinforced and un-reinforced friction stir welded joints. Metallurgical evaluation has been performed by capturing the microstructures of base materials and at different zones of nugget, heat affected zone (HAZ) by optical microscope to reveal the grain size and grain refinement at different zones.Finite element analysis has been carried out by ANSYS software to know the temperature distribution.