| Summary: | The present work investigates the effect of friction stir processing on microstructure evolution—grain refining and phase transformation- and hardness of NiAl bronze alloy. NiAl bronze alloys have a wide range of industrial applications especially in the marine field. The technique is based on applying friction using a rotating tool causing heat generation and material mixing. The effect of process parameters, such as; rotation speed, traverse speed, forced convection were investigated in this research. At constant traverse speed, the effect or rotation speed was studied at 800, 1000, and 1200 rpm. At constant rotation speed, the effect of traverse speed was studied at 40, 64, and 93 mm min ^−1 . Minimum grain size was achieved at FSP conditions 800 rpm/93 mm min ^−1 . Highest average hardness value was achieved by FSP 1200/93. At constant rotation and traverse speeds, the application of forced convection using air blowing at a rate of 4.5 m ^3 min ^−1 was studied and it was found to reduce the grain size within the SZ and to increase the average hardness value.
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