Thermo-Mechanical Modeling of Friction Stir Spot Welding (FSSW) Process: Use of an Explicit Adaptive Meshing Scheme

This paper presents on-going finite element modeling efforts of friction stir spot welding (FSSW) process by an explicit finite element code. Adaptive meshing and advection schemes, which makes it possible to maintain mesh quality under large deformations, is utilized to simulate the material flow and temperature distribution in FSSW process. The predicted overall deformation shape of the weld joint resembles that experimentally observed. Temperature and stress graphs in the radial direction as well as temperature-deformation distribution plots are presented. However, refinements of several modeling aspects are needed for more realistic prediction of the FSSW process.