Investigating the Effects of SiC Abrasive Particles on Friction Element Welding

Abstract

The use of dissimilar materials is increasing exponentially in the automotive industry due to the possibility of achieving weight reduction from the multi-material design. Friction Element Welding (FEW) is an advanced solid-state joining technique employed for joining dissimilar materials using a friction element. The processing time of FEW is relatively higher than a few of its competitive joining techniques, with the cleaning step contributing to the majority of the processing time. The current research investigates the effect of SiC abrasive particles on the processing time of FEW and its joint strength. The experimental results show a decrease in the processing time and an increase in the joint strength by reducing the abrasive particle size and the volume fraction of the abrasive particles used. When subjected to tensile loading, one of the samples showed interfacial failure, whereas others exhibited button pull-out failure. The best case from the experiments was chosen for comparison with the standard FEW test, which did not involve abrasives. The comparison shows a 14.3% reduction in processing time with a 10.8% increase in joint strength using abrasives. Inspection of the microscopic images revealed the presence of the SiC phase at the periphery of the friction element around the weld zone and the formation of a defect-free joint. The microhardness test detected a higher hardness along the weld zone for the case involving abrasives compared to the standard FEW test. The hardness data support the higher joint strength results obtained for the FEW joints formed with the abrasives.