Thermal prediction and experimental validation of Friction Stir Welded Aerospace Grade Aluminium Alloy

Abstract

Abstract An integrated three-dimensional Friction Stir Welding (FSW) model with moving coordinate system is developed for aerospace grade aluminium alloy. Most of the previous researcher’s work was based on the friction or stick and slip phenomenon with material modeling. In this present study, 3D heat transfer model is developed and integrated with both friction and stick-slip phenomenon using comsol multiphysics. The experiment was conducted on aerospace grade aluminium alloy 7075 with weld specimen size of 200mm X 100mm X 3mm. The temperature was recorded during welding with the help of high-temperature computerized data acquisition system (CDAQ 9212) in order to understand the thermal history of alloy at the pre-specified location. The recorded temperature values are validated with computed values. The measured temperature values at all thermocouple location in advancing side with error between 0.63 to 5.8 %, when compared with computed temperature.