Finite element simulation of material flow in friction stir welding

Abstract

A brief summary of recent finite element simulation results for the friction stir welding process is presented. The focus of the present study is on the characterisation of material flow around the rotating tool pin. Material flow patterns predicted by finite element simulations are found to compare favourably with experimental observations. The simulation results also reveal that material particles tend to pass and move behind the rotating pin from the trailing side, rather than both sides, of the pin. Possible variations in the material flow pattern due to variations in process parameters are discussed.

Estimation of Material Flow in Stir Zone during Friction Stir Welding by Distribution Measurement of Si Particles

“…6) The materials pass behind the rotating probe from the retreating side to the advancing side. 5,7,11) Field et al 8) investigated the texture components of the weld at the top plane, the midplane, and the bottom plane. The dominant shear direction is aligned with the tangent to the rotating tool at any position.…”

“…[2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] In these studies, the material flow patterns were investigated by various methods such as dissimilar welding, 2,3,10) the insert marker technique (IMT), 4,5,9,11) the orientation imaging microscopic (OIM) analysis, 6,8,13) and the finite element simulation. 7,12) Li et al 3) reported complex flow patterns in dissimilar welds of 2024 Al to 6061 Al, which were visualized by optical microscopy (OM) due to the different etchings of the two aluminum alloys. The complex patterns illustrate solidstate flow in intercalated vortices both parallel and perpendicular to the tool axis.…”

Effects of Size and Volume Fraction of Precipitated Crystalline Phase Induced by Friction Stir Processing on Hardness in Zr–Al–Ni–Cu Bulk Metallic Glass

“…It is difficult to explain the difference in morphology between PR-1 and PR-2, because the detailed mechanism of plastic flow of materials in FSP has not been sufficiently elucidated, although many studies have been made with the aim of clarifying the material flow mechanism in FSW/FSP. [30][31][32] Later, we attempt to clarify the difference in morphology by microstructural observation of the FSP specimens under different process condition of FSP.…”

The simulation of residual stresses in friction stir welds

“…The limitation of the PC computing power makes a fully thermo-mechanical analysis difficult to be completed in a reasonably short time Xu and Deng 2002]. To compensate for the lack of a predicted temperature field, actual temperature values from the practical FSW test [McClure et al 1999] will be used to construct an approximate temperature field for the FSW process simulation, as shown in Figure 2.…”

“…A two dimensional modeling of FSW, based on the Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) finite element formulation, was reported by . The method was further extended to analyze the three dimensional material flow by Xu and Deng [2002]. In the numerical models established by Deng and Xu, rate-independent material was used to model the friction stir welding process.…”