Finite element study on rotary friction welding process for mild steel

Abstract

The purpose of study is to investigate friction welding of series of mild steel by using Finite element analysis by a 3D model made in order having a proper rotational speed and time friction. This Numerical analysis divided into two categories that is structural analysis, and thermal analysis. Structural analysis process parameters can also have divided 4 kinds that are frictional time, frictional pressure, deformation and rotational speed. The thermal analysis process parameters are dealing with and counted as heat flux, and temperature. Friction welding with three different rotational speeds (2000 RPM, 2500 RPM, and 3000 RPM) & three different friction time (150 s, 200 s, and 250 s) This study used SOLIDWORKS 2016 and ANSYS 17.2. SOLIDWORKS 2016 is the software used for designing work pieces’ geometry while ANSYS 17 is the software is used to analyzed finite element analysis on the work pieces. The second purpose of study is the numerical analysis would be compared with the experimental analysis. The experimental analysis is taken place at friction welding machine in the laboratory of technology production of the University of Riau. Based on the numerical analysis we can summarized that the faster the shaft rotates would resulting the higher the temperature generated, the higher the heat flux generated, & the higher the reduced of length. Also the influence of friction time shown that the longer the time of friction would result the lower the temperature generated, the lower the heat flux generated, the lower the reduced of length value. By compared the numerical and experimental analysis we can conclude that the difference reduced of length data between simulation and experimental happened because on simulation only input the friction pressure, while on experiment friction and forging pressure happened simultaneously. By interpolating the result with the melting point of mild steel (1350 °C ) we can gather the minimum requirement for getting a uniform weld temperature for each friction time, that were; 2650 rpm for 150 s friction time, 2852 rpm for 200 s friction time, & 3034 rpm for 250 s friction time.