DETECTION OF SURFACE DEFECTS IN FRICTION STIR WELDED JOINTS BY USING A NOVEL MACHINE LEARNING APPROACH

The Friction stir welding process is a new entrant in welding technology. The FSW joints have high strength and helps in weight saving considerably than the other joining process as no filler material is added during welding. The weld quality is affected because of various kinds of defects occurring during the FSW process. Defects like cavity, surface grooves and flash could occur due to inappropriate set of process parameters which results in excessive or insufficient heat input. Defects analysis can be done by several non-destructive methods like immersion ultrasonic techniques, X-ray radiography, thermography, eddy current testing, synchrotron technique etc. In the present work the image processing techniques are applied over the test samples to detect the surface defects like pin holes, surface grooves etc.