Study of residual stresses in multi-pass friction stir processed surface composites

Abstract

ABSTRACT Friction stir processing (FSP) has materialised as a significantly improved procedure for surface modification and fabrication. This has propelled its use in the industries of aerospace, automobile, and suchlike. Surface composites have many advantages over conventional composites and FSP is extensively used for their fabrication. In this study, we have compared and analysed the residual stresses of such friction stir fabricated surface composites with AA6063 as the base alloy and B4C nanoparticles as the reinforcement. Here, diethyl ether was used for the incorporation of B4C into the substrate of the base alloy. The residual stresses were measured using a portable stress analyser. The effect of the number of passes (one pass, two passes, three passes, and four passes) of FSP was studied. It was concluded that the specimen processed at 1000 rpm and three passes showed the best results.