Thermal Modeling of Al Al and Al Steel Friction Stir Spot Welding
This paper presents a finite element thermal model for similar and dissimilar alloy friction stir spot welding (FSSW) The model is calibrated and validated using instrumented lap joints in Al Al and Al Fe automotive sheet alloys. The model successfully predicts the thermal histories for a range of process conditions. The resulting temperature histories are used to predict the growth of intermetallic phases at the interface in Al Fe welds. Temperature predictions were used to study the evolution of hardness of a precipitation hardened aluminum alloy during post weld aging after FSSW.
Journal of Materials Engineering and Performance