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Abstract
The increasing use of aluminium alloys in transportation, such as railways, shipbuilding and aeronautics, calls for more
ecient and reliable welding processes that would require more in depth understanding of fatigue failure. The objective of
this work focuses on the contrasting dierence of fatigue behaviour of joints made from the traditional process of metal
inert gas (MIG) welding, and the emerging process of friction stir welding (FSW). Eort is made to relate the macroscopic
mechanical behaviour to the microstructural feature of the weldments.
2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Aluminium alloy; Fatigue life; Friction stir welding; MIG; Scanning electron microscopy
1. Introduction
Conventional fusion welding of aluminium alloys
produces a weld prone to defects such as porosity,
consequence of entrapped hydrogen gas not being
able to escape from the weld pool during solidication. An example of a fusion process is the metal
inert gas (MIG) welding [1]. In the MIG welding
process, the arc and the weld are protected from
atmospheric contamination by a gas shield, and an
electric potential is established between the electrode and the work piece causing a current ow,
which generates thermal energy in the partially ionized inert gas. Friction stir welding (FSW) is a solidstate joining process developed and patented by The
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: pmgpm@fe.up.pt (P.M.G.P. Moreira).
0167-8442/$ - see front matter 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.tafmec.2007.06.001
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mechanical behaviour. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was carried out and the fractographic
features of both types of welds compared.
2. Welding processes
The MIG welding parameters used were: 128 A,
17.1 V, 700 mm/min and Argon at a 20 l/min ow.
A ller wire AWS ER5356 with a diameter of
1 mm [2] was used. The friction stir welds were performed using the same parameters for both alloys
were: welding speed of 800 mm/min; pitch angle of
2; rotating speed of 1500 rpm. The FSW process
of the Al6082-T6 was performed using a tool with
a 6 mm diameter threaded pin and the shoulder
had 15 mm diameter. For the Al6061-T6 a tool with
a 4 mm diameter threaded pin and a shoulder of
10 mm diameter were used.
3. Tensile tests
Tensile tests were performed to determine the
mechanical properties of the welded and unwelded
material (yield stress ry, rupture stress rt and Young
modulus E). The stress/strain records of all tensile
tests are plotted in Fig. 1 and the principal material
properties are presented in Table 1. It was found
that the FSW specimens have lower yield stress values than MIG specimens. Nevertheless the rupture
stress of FSW specimens presents higher values.
Also the elongation of the friction stir welded specimens presented higher values. The Al6061-T6 has
an ultimate tensile stress about 6% higher than the
Al6082-T6. All base material (BM) specimens failed
in the same manner, 45 shear plane.
For the case of MIG welded specimens rupture
occurred outside the welding seam in the heat
Table 1
Material properties for FS welded specimens, data acquired in
tensile tests
Parent 6082-T6
Parent 6061-T6
MIG 6082-T6
MIG 6061-T6
FSW 6082-T6
FSW 6061-T6
ry (MPa)
rt (MPa)
276.2
306.3
176.8
156.3
140.5
158.7
322.9
342.0
210.0
221.2
226.1
241.5
aected zone (HAZ). Similar observations are presented by Ericsson and Sandstrom [3] where a 45
fractured surface was also found. The Al6082-T6
MIG welded specimens present a yield stress and a
rupture stress of 65% of the base material. The yield
stress obtained in this work is 20% higher than the
results presented by [3]. The Al6061-T6 MIG
welded specimens has a yield stress of 51% of the
base material and a rupture stress of 65% of the base
material. Comparing MIG weldments of both alloys
it was found that the yield stress of the 6082-T6 is
higher but the rupture stress is higher for the
6061-T6 MIG welded specimens.
In the case of the 6082-T6 friction stir welded
specimens fracture occurred near the weld edge,
where a decrease of hardness occurs [4]. The fracture surface presents a 45 angle, as presented in
[5]. In the case of the Al6061-T6 the fracture started
at the weld root indicating that a lack of penetration
occurred during welding (root aw). Dickerson and
Przydatek [6] suggested that root aws up to
0.35 mm deep do not cause degradation in mechanical performance when compared to aw-free welds.
The Al6082-T6 friction stir welded specimens
present a yield stress of 51% and a rupture stress
of 70% of the base material. Obtained in [4] is also
a relation of rupture stress of 76% between the base
material and friction stir welded specimens. Values
of the same magnitude are also reported in [3,7,8].
The Al6061-T6 friction stir welded specimens have
a yield stress of 52% and a rupture stress of 71%
of the base material. Performed in [9] is the friction
stir weld of 4 mm thick Al6061-T651 plates. The
yield stress and rupture stress were found to be
lower compared with those obtained in this study.
4. Microhardness proles
Microhardness tests were performed to characterize the Vickers hardness prole in the vicinity of
the weld area. Measurements were performed at
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ing process softened the material reducing the hardness to 33% of the parent material, as shown in [4].
The hardness minimum values are obtained in the
welding retreating side, e.g. [5]. As it also suggested
in [7] the variation of the microhardness values in
the welded area and parent material is due to the difference between the microstructure of the base alloy
and weld zone.
5. SN fatigue data
Fatigue tests were carried out in a servo-hydraulic MTS testing machine. Specimens dimensions
were chosen according to the ASTM standard
E466. The weld was perpendicular to the load direction in the SN tests and to the material rolling
direction. The maximum stress levels used were chosen as a function of the yield stress for each type of
joint. Values of 12040% of the yield stress were
chosen. A stress ratio of R = 0.1 was used and the
frequency was in the interval of 726 Hz depending
upon the stress level. Life was dened as the number
of cycles to failure and a total of 76 specimens were
tested. The number of cycles considered as a threshold for innite life was 107 cycles. The fatigue lives
results for the MIG and friction stir welded specimens are plotted in Fig. 4.
In tests of friction stir welded specimens, data
show narrow scatter and were tted using a power
equation. For the friction stir welded 6082-T6, it
was found that for 65% and 60% of the yield stress
the fatigue life is considered innite. In friction stir
welded specimens fatigue cracks have propagated
at the centre of the weld, as veried in [5] when
studying friction stir welded 5 mm and 10 mm thick
6082-T6 specimens. Also, a study [3] on the fatigue
life assessment of the same alloy obtained a fatigue
life of 5 105 cycles to failure with a stress range of
about 90 MPa, at a stress ratio, R = 0.5. In the present study, the fatigue life of 5 105 cycles is
obtained at a stress range of 105 MPa. The friction
stir welded 6061-T6 specimens presented lower lives
than the friction stir 6082-T6 specimens when tested
at stresses lower than 130 MPa. For the friction stir
welded 6061-T6 specimens cracks have propagated
near the limit of the tool shoulder. Fatigue scatter is
somewhat higher in the MIG welded specimens and
data were tted using a power equation. Fatigue
lives of MIG welded specimens are lower than those
of friction stir welded specimen. The 6061-T6 MIG
welded specimens presented higher fatigue lives than
the MIG 6082-T6 specimens.
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6. Metallographic analysis
For the analysis of microstructural changes due
to the MIG and FSW processes, the joints were
cross-sectioned perpendicularly to the welding
direction and etched with HF reagent [10]. Microstructures were acquired in dierent zones: transition between welded and base material, welded
material and base material.
6.1. MIG welded specimens
The macrostructure of the Al6082-T6 MIG weld
is presented in Fig. 5. The identication of the two
weld beads is straightforward, and the transition
between the HAZ and base material is also identied. Examples of microstructures are also shown
in this gure.
Micropores with a diameter no larger than
100 lm, dispersed in the matrix are identied in
microstructure 2. These pores are due to the fusion
nature of the MIG welding technique. The transition between the material that suered fusion to
the material only aected by the heat generated during welding is shown in microstructure 2. The HAZ
material has a structure similar to the base material,
ne grains with dispersed precipitates. Microstructure 4 shows the base material. Similar conclusions
were derived from the MIG 6061-T6 microstructural analysis.
6.2. FSW welded specimens
In Fig. 6, the macrostructure and some microstructures of the friction stir weld of the Al6082T6 alloy are presented. At the centre it is possible
to identify the weld nugget. The weld nugget experi-
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Fig. 7. Fatigue striations for dierent crack lengths: (a) Al6082T6 fractograph 19 crack length of 3.974 mm and (b) Al6061-T6
fractograph 18, crack length of 3.322 mm.
out. The fatigue crack surface presented a heterogenic structure with dierent structures dispersed
randomly. For example, in fractograph 9 presented
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8. Conclusions
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[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
Please cite this article in press as: P.M.G.P. Moreira et al., Fatigue behaviour of FSW and MIG weldments ..., Theor.
Appl. Fract. Mech. (2007), doi:10.1016/j.tafmec.2007.06.001