Abstract Friction stir processing (FSP) is modified to produce various grain sizes of aluminum matrix composites (Al-Al2O3, Al-Zn-Al2O3 and Al-Zn) ranging from 300 nm to 3£gm. The microstructures of the composites were characterized using SEM and TEM. Tensile tests were performed to evaluate the mechanical properties of these composites. In the Al-Al2O3 system, it was found that the nano-scale alumina made it very effective to accumulate dislocations within grains during deformation, and resulted in increasing working hardening rate which is very critical to extend uniform elongation for materials with submicron grain sizes. In the Al-Zn-Al2O3 system, addition of Zn which dissolved into Al matrix to form solid solution and subsequently uniformly distributed G-P zones can improve strength and uniform ductility to some extent, comparing to those without addition of Zn. In addition, the relaxed and dislocation-free boundaries were observed regardless the existence of Al2O3 particles on boundaries. As a result, ko derived from Hall-Petch equation from various strain region decrease as Zn increases. In the Al-Zn system, experimental evidence suggests that increasing Zn content from 0 to 15wt% can enhance the total elongation but not uniform elongation as a result of the uniform spreading of the fine slip bands all over the gauge length and the contribution of grain boundary sliding (GBS) at RT. The relaxed and dislocation-free boundaries and GBS are attributed to the combination of high fraction of high-angle GBs and high GB diffusion to help fast dislocations annihilation at boundaries.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2007. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains xii, 135 p. : ill. (some col.). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 106-112).

The study of defect formation and identification is important to the further application of friction stir welding in industry. To better understand the topic, a systematic study was undertaken to describe material flow effects on the formation of defects, to list the various types of defects encountered across a parameter window, and to identify features in the weld force data that can then be used to recognize defects within the weld without destructive testing. Tracer studies were used to determine the impact of the material flow on defect formation with a determination that proper shoulder contact is necessary to obtain sufficient material flow to fully consolidate the weld. A series of welds across a range of rotational speeds was used to identify mechanisms that led to variations in the mechanical properties of the welded panels. A balance between the x- and yorces on the tool is needed to produce robust welds that were defect free. UMF was shown to identify regions of changing material flow conditions; however, the identification of intermittent defects was not as successful.

Process forces arising during Friction Stir Welding (FSW) have become of interest to investigators interested in obtaining weld quality information from recorded weld data. Successful analysis of process forces require the separation of force signals stemming from material flow mechanisms within the weld from signals influenced by the FSW machine. Three modes of FSW control were characterized for system response: Servo Position (SPC), Electronic Deflection Compensation (EDC), and Constant Load Control (CLC). The gain value of the feedback loops associated with EDC and CLC modes were altered and characterized. SPC mode response to vertical changes in the tool position was also characterized. Machine-specific force signatures associated with the motor transmission assembly and spindle resonance were also identified. Characterization of the influence of machine control modes and other machinespecific frequencies on process force signals will allow future investigators to identify segments of welds during which machine actions influenced recorded force data.

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Aluminum and Zinc oxide powder were blended by friction stir processing (FSP) with threaded pin of 6mm in diameter under conditions of traverse speed, 1mm/sec and rotation speed, 1500rpm. Different thermal analysis (DTA) was conducted to reveal that the melting point of the stir zone decreased to 592oC from 660oC of the green compact specimen containing 20wt%ZnO. X-ray diffraction (XRD) identified that Zn from ZnO dissolved into Al matrix, and did not resolve redox products, alomina. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with filed emission gun was employed with EDS analysis. It is interesting to note that many redoxed products with oxygen concentration higher than that of the matrix can be seen as dark and gray phases in BSE images. Evidently, a chemical reaction in Al/ZnO system is possible during FSP and results of the reduced Zn dissolving into the Al matrix and the expected but not detectable nanoscale alumina uniformly being dispersed into the matrix can be attributed to the excellent 22% elongation, and 350 MPa tensile strength in the stir zone from stirred Al-25wt% ZnO.

In this paper, Friction Stir Welding(FSW) experiments are conducted using similar and dissimilar metals of 6061-T6 Aluminum alloy, AZ-31 Magnesium alloy, JISC-1100 pure copper as specimens. Thermalcouples of type D are used to measure temperature history at different postions of workpiece duing Fsw. Form the temperature history, the preheating temperature and the tool rotation and tool moving speed can be found for a successful welding process. The experimental results show that the temperature ranges for the tool starting to move after preheating are 250-2500C, 200-2500C and 300-3500C for silimar metals of Al alloy, Mg alloy and pure copper and that for of dissimilar of Al alloy and Mg alloy is 200-2500C. Vickers hardness test and tensile test of the welded products are also conducted. The hardness testing results show that the vickers hardness of similar Al alloy, Mg alloy and pure copper sheets beforing weldig are about, 102, 70 and 105HV, respectively. The hardness of the nugget region of similar Al alloy, Mg alloy and pure copper sheets after welding are about 60, 62 and 65 HV, respectively and that for dissimilar of Al alloy and Mg alloy sheets is 138HV. The tensile testing results shows that for similar of Al alloy, Mg alloy and pure copper sheets beforing weldig are about, 320, 300 and 280MPa, respectively. The tensile strenghts of similar Al alloy, Mg alloy and pure copper sheets after welding, are about 160, 250 and 200 MPa, respectively, and that for dissimilar Al and Mg alloys is 100 MPa. The above experimental results can provide information for Fsw of Al, Mg alloys and pure copper. Keywords¡GFriction Stir Welding¡Fthermalcouple¡Ftemperature career

In this study, the experimental apparatus with a friction stir welding dynamometer was employed to investigate the joint characteristics of Cu-Ni alloy plate in thickness of 3.6mm lap-welding to low carbon steel plate in thickness of 4 mm using cylinder type tool (without probe) under the welding parameters of rotating speeds (800~1400 rpm) and traveling speed of tool (10~80 mm/min). To prevent the joint interface from oxidizing during the welding process, the joint interfaces of Cu-Ni alloy and low carbon steel respectively were electroplated with Ni coating layer in different thicknesses before the welding. The effect of the thickness of Ni coating layer on shear strength of joint interface and the mechanism of welding are also investigated. Experimental results show that under the rotating speed of 1000 rpm and travelling speed of 10 mm/min, the shear strength for without Ni coating layer is measured about 100 MPa. On the other hand, the shear strength is increased to saturated value of 290 MPa with increasing the thickness of Ni coating layer. Especially, the shear strength of joint interface for the Cu-Ni alloy with 5£gm thickness of Ni coating layer lap-welding to low carbon steel with thickness of 20£gm thickness of Ni coating layer is about 2.9 times of that for without Ni coating layer. Moreover, the downward force (Fd) is decreased and the maximum interface temperature (Tmax) and shear strength (£n) are increased with increasing the rotating speed (N). The downward force is increased and the maximum interface temperature and shear strength are decreased with increasing the traveling speed (f). This complex relationship is discussed by the new parameter of Fd¡EN/f, the relationship among Fd¡EN/f, maximum interface temperature and shear strength shows that the maximum interface temperature is increased and shear strength is increased to saturated value of 290 MPa with increasing Fd¡EN/f. The phenomenon is explained that the diffusion bonding between the joint interface of two plates become more homogeneous.

Friction Stir Welding(FSW) experiments are conducted using 6061-T6 aluminum as specimens. The temperatures at different distances from the center of the joint are measured. Curve fitting analyses are used to predict the temperature distribution and calculate the central temperature of the joint, proceeding by measuring temperature. A second order curve is found to better fit the experiment values by the least square method.

In this research, one solid state processing technique, friction stir processing, is applied to modify the AZ61 magnesium alloy billet and to incorporate 5-10 vol% nano-sized ceramic particles SiO2 into the AZ61 magnesium alloy matrix to form bulk composites, using the characteristic rotating downward and circular material flow around the stir pin. The microstructure and mechanical properties of the modified alloy and composite samples are examined and compared. The FSP modified AZ61 alloy could be refined to 3-8um via the dynamic recrystallization during processing. However, the one-pass FSP modified alloy appeared the inhomogeneous grain structures to influence the tensile ductility along the welding direction at elevated temperatures due to the onion splitting. In contrast, the multi-pass FSP could improve the inhomogeneous grain structures to reduce the influence of the onion-splitting to the deformation at elevated temperatures. The FSP modified alloys show the lower yielding stress due to the unique texture of (0002) basal planes, with roughly surround the pin column surface of the pin tool in the stirred zone. In addition, it is suggested that the second processing of the subsequent compression along the normal direction might be necessary to alter the texture and to improve the lower yielding stress after modifying the grain size by FSP. Friction stir processing could successfully fabricate bulk AZ61 Mg based composites with 5 to 10 vol% of nano-sized SiO2 particles. The nano-sized SiO2 particles added into magnesium matrix could be uniformly dispersed after four FSP passes. The average grain sizes of the composites varied within 0.5-2um, and the composites nearly double the hardness as compared with the as-received AZ61 cast billet. This composite exhibited high strain rate superplasticity, with a maximum ductility of 470% at 1x10-2 s-1 and 300oC or 454% at 3x10-1 s-1 and 400oC while maintaining fine grains less than 2um in size.