Publication

Abstract : Friction stir welding (FSW) has become a potential solid state joining technique with considerable advantages over conventional joining process. Defect-free friction stir welded joints with high joint strength are obtained when optimum process parameters are used. Although a large number of parameters govern the FSW process, the tool rotation speed, Welding speed and tool geometry are key parameters that influence the joint strength. In this work, a statistical model relating process parameters and the tensile strength (TS) of friction stir welded AA1100 joints is build using response surface methodology. The four independent variables are tool rotational speed (TRS), welding speed (WS), shoulder diameter (SD) and pin diameter (PD). Central Composite design is used and Analysis of Variance at 95% confidence level was applied to assess the adequacy of the developed model. Genetic algorithm is used for optimizing the parameters. The optimum process parameter values predicted using the genetic algorithm are as follows. Tool rotation speed: 1001.9 rpm; welding speed: 62 mm/min; shoulder diameter: 17.8 mm and pin diameter: 6.5 mm. The corresponding tensile strength of the joints is 73.1556 MPa