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Effect of backing plate material in friction stir butt and lap welding of 6063-T4 aluminium alloy

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Abstract

6063-T4 aluminum alloy plates were friction stir butt and lap welded using three different backing plate materials: mild steel, stainless steel, and asbestos. Effects of backing plate material on macrostructure, peak mid-section temperatures in heat affected and weld nugget zones, and weld mechanical properties were obtained for each of the cases. Effect of backing plate material was seen to be more significant in lap than butt welding. While lap welds obtained even at a low welding speed, for mild steel and stainless steel backing plates, contained multiple weld defects leading to failure in lap shear tests from weld nugget zone, corresponding welds obtained with asbestos backing plate were defect free resulting in failure from base metal region. In butt as well as lap configuration, asbestos backing plate which had the lowest thermal diffusivity was observed to provide the largest process window within which defect free welds could be obtained.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, 721302, India

    Murshid Imam, Vikranth Racherla & Kajal Biswas

Authors
  1. Murshid Imam
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  2. Vikranth Racherla
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  3. Kajal Biswas
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Correspondence to Vikranth Racherla.

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Imam, M., Racherla, V. & Biswas, K. Effect of backing plate material in friction stir butt and lap welding of 6063-T4 aluminium alloy. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 77, 2181–2195 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-014-6617-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-014-6617-6

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