Mechanical properties of welded joints in thin walled aluminium extrusions

Abstract

The present work describes the tensile properties of weldments in thin walled extruded Al–Mg–Si alloys. Tungsten inert gas (TIG), metal inert gas (MIG), and friction stir (FS) welding are considered. Properties of joints welded with different filler metals are presented, both matching and undermatching the parent materials in strength. The weldments were tested in both as welded and post-weld aged conditions. It is shown that silicon rich filler metals (Al–5Si and Al–12Si) were adequate for the welding of 6063 alloy but did not give welds with strength sufficient to match that of 6082 alloy. Tungsten inert gas welding resulted in large heat affected zone (HAZ) widths of 20 mm, compared with HAZ widths of 10 and 8 mm for MIG and FS welding respectively. This relationship was also seen in tensile tests where FS specimens exhibited the highest strength and TIG specimens exhibited the lowest strength. The post-weld aged materials recovered some strength, with increases in tensile strength of 10–15% for 6063 alloy and of 20% for alloy 6082 compared with the strengths of the as welded specimens. Comparisons between experimental data and two design codes, a draft European standard and the British standard BS 8118, show that the European standard is conservative for welds in thin walled material. Standard BS 8118 describes MIG and FS HAZ widths well but underestimates the HAZ width for TIG welds.