NONLINEAR FINITE ELEMENT SIMULATION OF FRICTION STIR WELDING OF AA7075 T651 ALUMINIUM ALLOY

Friction Stir Welding (FSW) is a solid state joining process. Heat generation and heat distribution of friction stir welding is a fundamental phenomenon and Sound welding is dependent on the adequate heat generation. Due to stirring of materials it is difficult to measure temperature in stir zone. Numerical simulation helps in finding the temperature in stir zone. Numerical simulation of the temperature distribution of friction stir welding of aluminium alloy has been investigated in the present research. A finite element code using ANSYS APDL software package has been developed for modelling of friction stir welding. Thermal physical properties of the material aluminium alloy are considered as temperature dependent in the present work. The cooling effect caused by the free convection in ambient air, backing plate and clamped bar is taken into account. It was observed that the peak temperature is not uniform along weld line, inhomogeneous temperature distribution along thickness.