The purpose of this research is to use friction stir welding (FSW) to join dissimilar  metals, annealed low carbon steel and A1050 pure aluminum. A butt joint with a similar sheet thickness of 1.9 mm was applied. The novelties of the research are relatively using high generated heat produced by a combination of low traverse speed and high rotational speed to perform the dissimilar joints and using a tool material (K107cold work tool steel) which has not been used in FSW with tool cooling. The present work studied the effect of FSW variables such as tilt angle, tool cooling, base metal location on mechanical properties. Tensile tests were used to evaluate the mechanical properties of the dissimilar joints. The microstructure specimens were examined using a scanning electron microscope (SEM). Sound dissimilar joints were successfully produced. The maximum joint efficiency obtained in this study is 51.7% of the aluminum tensile strength. The microstructure images showed that many steel fragments were sheared off from the steel surface by the tool action and scattered in the weld nugget, a continuous intermetallic compound (IMC) layer formed at the interface, the thickness of the IMC layer at the interface decreased in the thickness direction of the weld. FeAl3 IMC phase was only observed at the interface.

The objectives of this work are to optimize the process parameters on the mechanical properties (ultimate tensile strength (UTS) and ductility) of dissimilar joints between AA5454 and AA7075 produced by friction stir welding and to determine which of them is significant by using Taguchi L16 optimization method. Seven parameters at two levels were selected in this study. The selected parameters are tool rotational speed, traverse speed, pin profile (based on taper angle), D/d ratio, tool tilt angle, plunge depth, and base metal location. Then, mathematical models are built as function of significant parameters/ interactions using Response Surface Methodology. The results of this work showed that the rotational speed, traverse speed, D/d ratio and plunge depth are significant parameters in determining UTS (Mean, Signal to noise ratio (S/N)) at different confidence levels, but pin profile, location of base metal and tool tilt angle are insignificant parameters at any confidence levels. The traverse speed has the highest contribution to the process for UTS about 18.577 % and 16.943 % for S/N ratio and mean, respectively. The accuracy of the models according to the UTS is 97.678 % and 99.56 %for mean and S/N ratio, respectively. The maximum joint efficiency, compared to the strength of the AA5454, is 85.3%.