Implementation of Exceptional Microstructures and Mechanical Properties of Structural Carbon Steel Tubes by Friction Welding

Abstract

In this study, friction welding was applied to carbon steel tubes at a high speed condition to achieve an eco-friendly welding process and a superior mechanical performance. Friction welding is a very efficient process for joining materials without defects, especially with joint rods or tubes. For this study, cold drawn carbon steel tubes (AISI 1020) were introduced as the base material and successfully joined by friction welding. Friction welding was performed with parameters of a burn-off length (1, 2 and 5 mm). In order to analyze the welds, the electron backscattering diffraction method was introduced and observed the grain boundary characteristic distributions such as grain size, shape and orientation. To evaluate the relationship between the mechanical properties and microstructure, Vickers microhardness and tensile tests were introduced. As a result, the yield strength of the welds significantly increased relative to the base material at all conditions, and which derived from the microstructure development like a refined acicular ferrite grains through the dynamic recrystallization during the welding. Consequently, we suggest the optimum conditions of the friction welding with the interdependence of the microstructures and mechanical properties in this study. This demonstration substantially offers the possibility of an eco-friendly environment and superior tube welding quality without any defect and harmful gases at the high speed welding process as well as at the lowest cost. This technology can be extended to mass production processes with exceptional benefits for various industries.

Jointing Achievement and Performance Evaluation of Bogie Crossmember Ring Joint Welded via Inertia Friction Welding

“…Under the effect of the thermo-mechanical coupling of IFW, the microstructure of WS and TMAZ produced significant changes compared to BM, exhibiting both supercooled austenite phase transition characteristics and recrystallisation characteristics after plastic deformation. During the welding process, WS heats up to a red-hot state [26,27], leading to complete austenitization. Due to the cold source of the base material, a significant degree of subcooling occurs, leading to the formation of a microstructure consisting mainly of granular bainite, alongside some acicular ferrite and pearlite.…”

Review of “Integrated Computer-Aided Process Engineering Session in the International Symposium on Innovation in Materials Processing (ISIMP, 26–29 October 2021)”

“…The session focused on recent breakthroughs in scale-bridging simulations and characterization techniques for understanding, characterizing, and predicting the PSP relationships of newly developed materials at the laboratory and industrial levels. Eleven selected papers [47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57] were published in a special issue of Materials Transactions (Vol. 63, No.…”