Temperature Distribution Analysis in Plates Joined by Friction Stir Welding
Friction Stir Welding (FSW) is a solid-state welding process which generates heat through mechanical friction between a moving workpiece and a fixed component, in order to plastically combine materials. This process has been gaining considerable attention due to several key advantages, which include: good mechanical properties of the combined materials after welding, absence of toxic fumes and molten material spatter, low environmental impact, and low concentration of defects while allowing a large variation of parameters and materials. Although a reasonable number of experimental investigations on FSW are available in the literature, numerical modeling of this process has not been performed on a large scale. In that light, this paper presents a numerical investigation of the temperature distribution in plates welded by FSW, using finite element analysis. The finite element model developed includes friction between the workpiece and the fixed component, as well as the corresponding heat dissipation that results from plastic deformation of the material. The model was found appropriate for estimating important welding characteristics, such as the heat-affected zone (HAZ), and their sensitivity to various welding parameters.