An experimental study on the effect of silver interlayer on dissimilar friction welds 6061-T6 aluminum MMC and AISI 304 stainless steel

Abstract

This study focuses on the influence of silver <span class="b">interlayer on the weld properties of dissimilar 6061-T6 Al MMC and AISI304 stainless steel friction welds.<b> </b>Aluminum MMCs are finding greater utility in automobile and aerospace industries. Significant features of Al MMCs that draw huge attention are considerable reduction in mass, prominent in engine parts, enhanced material properties, the strength and stiffness, improved lubrication characteristics and wear resistance, reduced thermal expansion coefficient etc. This positive facet of Al MMCs increase component durability and permit application in extreme service conditions. To boost up the application of aluminium MMCs in real time applications, it is essential to weld these specimens to other engineering materials especially steel. There are several works reporting the lacunas in fusion welding processes of dissimilar aluminium/steel joints, viz., preferential melting of the aluminum alloy and formation of brittle iron-aluminum intermetallics. However, friction welding process illustrates positive sign for its employment to join dissimilar aluminium/steel. Conversely, intermetallic formation is still of concern. Consequently, as an alternative to the prevalence over this problem, interlayer is introduced in this work and the influence of the introduced silver interlayer on the weldment is examined. The characteristics of silver interlayer influenced friction welds are compared with the silver free dissimilar friction welding process. The parameters such as friction pressure, heat generation during welding and friction coefficient are derived for the silver enriched welds. These derived parameters are compared with silver free welds. From this comparison, it is observed that the introduction of silver interlayer decreases friction coefficient and heat generation during welding. This effect reduces particle fracture and width of the softened zone regions. Decreasing the width of the softened zone and particle fracture increases the strength of the weld if the silver interlayer is formed at the bondline. Further, <span style="font-family: Times-Roman;mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-font-family:Times-Roman; mso-ansi-language:EN-IN">an attempt is made to develop a finite element model to analyze the temperature distribution happening during friction welding process.

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