The fatigue life of a friction stir welded 19501 aluminium alloy T-joint
Friction stir welding (FSW) is a solid-state joining which reduces the structural weight significantly and hence it has received worldwide attention for the joining of aluminium alloys. In this paper, fatigue tests and finite element analysis were employed to study the mechanical and fatigue propert...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
De Gruyter
2018-06-01
|
| Series: | Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Materials |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1515/jmbm-2018-0006 |
| Summary: | Friction stir welding (FSW) is a solid-state joining which reduces the structural weight significantly and hence it has received worldwide attention for the joining of aluminium alloys. In this paper, fatigue tests and finite element analysis were employed to study the mechanical and fatigue properties of a friction stir welded T-joint of 19501 aluminium alloy. An LS-2 FSW machine with 100 kN capacity was used to fabricate the T and butt joints. The tensile properties of the friction stir welded joint show that there is a marginal reduction of about 5% in strength and ductility as compared to an un-welded 19501 aluminium alloy. S-N test results of theT-joint specimen at two stress ratios of 0 and −1 showed that there was a reduction of 15% in the fatigue strength due to the change of stress ratio from 0 to −1. The effect of mean stress can be well approximated using Goodman’s criterion as compared to Gerber’s or Soderberg’s criteria. The predicted fatigue lives from the proposed model using the Palmgren-Miner rule (PMR) were found to be within reasonable accuracy. Micrographs shown for the fracture surfaces of the retreating side, mid-weld zone and the advancing side of the T-joint indicate that fracture surfaces are a mixture of dimple and cleavage features. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 0334-8938 2191-0243 |