A Study of Mechanical and Micro Structural Properties of Friction Stir Welded Aluminium Alloy

Aluminium alloys have a wide range of application in many industries like aerospace, defence, marine etc. Friction Stir Welding (FSW) can produce low cost and high quality joints of aluminium alloys because it does not need consumable filler materials and can eliminate some welding defects such as crack and porosity. The most important contributing factors for mechanical properties are Tool rotational speed and Tool feed followed by Shoulder diameter and Pin depth. In this paper a little concentration is paid to study the effect of rotational speed and feed rate on properties of FSW weldments. Aluminium plates of Standard thickness (6 mm) were butt welded on single side by friction stir welding (FSW) process under various traversing speeds and rotational speeds. The effects on mechanical properties like hardness and tensile strength of the welded region were studied. Reduction of hardness by an amount of 7.8% at higher welding speed might have increased the tensile strength by an amount of 45%.