Residual stresses in aluminium alloy friction stir welds

Abstract

Residual stresses are detrimental to the fatigue, fracture and corrosion resistance of welds. The literature on residual stress measurements in aluminium alloy friction stir welds is reviewed. The results of a large number of longitudinal residual stress measurements performed by the slitting method on friction stir welds in 2024-T3, 6082-T6 and 5754-H111 aluminium alloys are compared and their origin discussed. From the current investigation, it can be derived that the type of machine used for welding has only little influence on the residual stress profile. The influence of alloy type and welding parameters on the magnitude of the residual stresses and the shape of their distribution across the weld is investigated. Their magnitude is far below the room temperature yield strength of the base material. A distribution with an “M-shape” is always found on age hardenable structural alloys (albeit more pronounced in 6082-T6 alloy than in 2024-T3 alloy), while a “plateau” is found in the case of the strain hardenable 5754 H111 alloy. The low magnitude and the differences in distribution of the longitudinal residual stress are attributed mainly to the microstructural changes in the weld centre and are discussed based on the hardness profiles performed across the welds. The paper also discusses the reasons why those results are in disagreement with a number of numerical simulations from the literature that do not account for the influence of the welding thermomechanical history on the material microstructure and properties.