Experimental Study of Cylindrical Tool Pin Profile with Flute on Mechanical and Metallurgical Properties of the Friction Stir Welded Joint of AA6061-T6

Abstract

Friction Stir Welding (FSW) is a solid-state joining technique that has many advantages over traditional welding techniques, especially when it comes to reducing distortion and getting rid of solidification problems. In this work, a cylindrical tool with a straight flute (CTST) is used to fabricate 5 mm thick aluminium alloy sheets for the FSW process. The investigation examines the best way to optimize the welding parameters and evaluates the mechanical characteristics of the welds, such as elongation, tensile strength and Vickers hardness. Metallographic microscopy, optical microscopy (OM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were among the tools used to examine the microstructure of the welded joints. According to the findings, the best welding conditions are obtained when the rotational speed is set to 1300 rpm, 0◦tilt angle and the welding speed is set to 300 mm/min for aluminium alloy sheets of thickness 5mm in AA6061-T6. The welds show remarkable strength characteristics under these circumstances. To be more precise, the weld joints Vickers hardness, tensile strength and elongation are roughly 80%, 92% and 65% of the base material’s values, respectively. The effectiveness is confirmed by these findings, which align with the observed microstructural features. These results validate the efficacy of the selected welding parameters in generating high-quality welds, as they are in line with the observed microstructural features.