NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF FRICTION STIR BUTT WELDING PROCESSES FOR AZ91 MAGNESIUM ALLOY

K. Senthil Kumar, M. Sivasangari, V. Rubesh Raj, L. Nirmal Raj

Abstract: Friction Stir Welding (FSW) is a solid state welding process. In particular, it can be used to join high-strength aerospace magnesium and other metallic alloys that are hard to weld by conventional fusion welding. It was performed on 4 mm thickness AZ91 Magnesium alloy. Magnesium alloy have more advantage than aluminum such as light weight, softer, tendency to bend easily, cost effective in terms of energy requirements so magnesium alloy has selected in this FSW technique. In friction stir welding (FSW), a momentous residual stress is present in weld due to complex nature of fixturing system compared to fusion welding. These residual stresses can affect properties of welded components during service. Therefore, for estimating magnitude of welding residual stresses and their nature of distribution along with thermal history, a three dimensional non- linear thermo-mechanical finite element (NLTMFE) model using ABAQUS/ CAE package was developed for butt welded magnesium alloy AZ91. The objective of this work is to predict the temperature distribution in both materials and evaluate the mechanical properties during the friction stir welding on magnesium alloy

Keywords: Fsw, Nltmfe, Abaqus, Cae, Az91.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15623/ijret.2014.0303018