Comparison of different welding methods on mechanical properties and formability behaviors of tailor welded blanks (TWB) made from AA6061 alloys

Abstract

A tailor welded blank (TWB) includes two or more blanks joined together in order to make a single blank. Different welding methods are used to join blanks with different characteristics and form TWBs. In this study, a comparison is made among the effects of three different welding methods namely CO2 laser welding, friction stir welding (FSW), and friction stir vibration welding (FSVW) on mechanical and formability properties of developed TWBs. AA6061 alloy sheets with different thicknesses (1.2 and 0.8 mm) are joined to get TWBs. The forming limit diagram (FLD) and limiting dome height (LDH) are applied to assess the formability. The Taguchi method is applied to find the optimum values of welding parameters. It is concluded that TWBs made by FSVW have higher mechanical properties and formability compared to TWBs made by FSW and CO2 laser welding. The results also indicate that FLD for TWBs made by FSW is higher than FLD for TWBs made by CO2 laser welding and FLD0, for TWBs made by FSVW, increases as vibration frequency increases.