Predicting Deformations in Aluminum Overlap Joint Produced by FSW Process

The goal of the work was to develop model of Friction Stir Welding process that predicts deformations of the joined components based on the specified heat input. In the analyzed case two overlapping aluminum sheets were welded. The top sheet had the thickness of 1.0 and the bottom sheet had the thickness of 0.6 mm. The model used Finite Element Method. Thermal mechanical coupled formulation was chosen. The heat input was estimated based on the temperature measurements in the selected points along the welding line. Heat source was calibrated to match the numerically calculated and experimentally measured thermal cycles. The calculated field of displacements in direction perpendicular to the sheet surface was selected to compare the numerical results with the actual geometry of welded sheets. The model achieved the satisfying accuracy with respect to the qualitative description of the deformations.