Tensile and wear behaviour of friction stir welded AA5052 and AA6101-T6 aluminium alloys: effect of welding parameters

To improve the performance and effectiveness of cost, constructing lightweight structure is the important factor for automobile, naval and aerospace industries. AA5052 and AA6101-T6 aluminium alloys are widely applied in transport industries, due to their lightweight and high strength and hence, joining of these two are unavoidable. Friction stir welding is an unconventional welding method, which is developed for constructing lightweight structures. This work describes the detailed study of friction stir welded dissimilar AA5052 and AA6101-T6 alloys. AA5052 and AA6101-T6 plates are welded with rotation rates of 765–1400 rpm and offset distances at advancing side of 0–2 mm. For this purpose, four levels of welding parameters based on Taguchi L16 orthogonal array are chosen. To determine the optimum combinational levels and identify the effect of above-mentioned parameters on tensile and wear properties, Signal to Noise ratio and ANOVA respectively are used. From the results, it is observed that the combination of 1 mm offset distance at advancing side and 1400 rpm rotating speed produces better tensile and wear properties, which is due to high heat generation, sufficient flow of materials and balanced precipitation and strain hardening effects. On the other hand, the combination of 2 mm tool offset at advancing side and 765 rpm rotational rate exhibits poor properties, which is associated with low heat input, defects formation, precipitate coarsening and lesser strain hardening effects.