Abstract
Inertia friction welding has been used across the aerospace, automotive, and power-generation industries for the fabrication of complex axisymmetric components for over forty years. The process involves one axisymmetric piece being held stationary and another piece being brought into contact set to rotate about its axis of symmetry by a flywheel with the system under an applied load across the joint. Plasticization at the joint interface through the frictional heating sees the two pieces bond together. The titanium alloy Ti-6Al-4V has been widely studied for inertia welding applications. A successful selection of processing parameters (flywheel energy and mass, applied load) allows an inertia welding process which produces a very high-integrity weld, with a minimal heat-affected zone (HAZ) and thermomechanically affected zone (TMAZ), formed as a narrow band at the interface and extending further into the material. The width of this narrow band of heated material is dependent upon the process parameters used. A series of experimental inertia friction welds were performed using Ti-6Al-4V, and a finite element (FE) modeling framework was developed using the FE code Deform in order to predict the widths of the HAZ and TMAZ at the weld interface. The experimentally observed HAZ boundaries were correlated with the thermal fields from the FE model, while TMAZ boundaries were correlated with the Von Mises plastic strain fields.
Highlights
FRICTION welding techniques are becoming a more widespread and popular processing route for fabrication of complex components across a number of industries, notably aerospace,[1] automotive,[2] transportation,[3] and power generation
Inertia weld experiments were performed at the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) using a 125-ton state-of-the-art MTI inertia friction welding machine,[17] using hollow cylindrical coupons of Ti-6Al-4V measuring 86 mm in length, 80 mm in outer diameter, and 40 mm in inner diameter
The finite element (FE) modeling thermal and mechanical outputs were interrogated to determine the predicted widths of the band of material that was (i) understood to exceed the b-transus temperature, and which was (ii) predicted to experience a significant plastic strain. These fields were calculated by plotting the fields of temperature and von Mises plastic strain perpendicular to the weld line
Summary
FRICTION welding techniques are becoming a more widespread and popular processing route for fabrication of complex components across a number of industries, notably aerospace,[1] automotive,[2] transportation,[3] and power generation. This is largely due to the concomitant benefits of microstructural refinement and controlled residual stresses[4] achieved due to the thermal, mechanical, and microstructural evolutions at the interface region of the two faying surfaces during a friction weld, compared with a more traditional fusion welding technique.
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