Influence of Friction Stir Welding Variants on Crashworthiness of Friction Stir Welded Aluminium Top Hat Sections
The motivation for this research is the desire to design a cross-section of frontal crash absorbing member that deforms in a regular controlled manner, but also the desire for cost-to-weight effectiveness. Nowadays, Friction Stir Welding (FSW) is a popular process for welding of difficult to weld aluminium alloys due to its advantages of solidification related defect free microstructure, low residual stress and comparable mechanical properties with the base metal. In order to better understand the crashworthiness of aluminium alloy joints produced by FSW, this investigation was carried out to fabricate a frontal member top hat section with base member welded by three different friction stir welding process variants. The crashworthiness was investigated by subjecting the fabricated joints to quasi static loading and the results are reported. The experimental results are compared with the results of numerical simulation.