3D numerical simulation of the three stages of Friction Stir Welding based on friction parameters calibration

Abstract

International audienceAn Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) formulation was developed to simulate the different stages of the Friction Stir Welding (FSW) process with the FORGE3® F.E. software. A splitting method was utilized: a) the material velocity/pressure and temperature fields are calculated, b) the mesh velocity is derived from the domain boundary evolution and an adaptive refinement criterion provided by error estimation, c) P1 and P0 variables are remapped. The proposed ALE formulation is applied to FSW simulation. Steady state welding, but also transient phases are simulated, showing good robustness and accuracy of the developed formulation. Friction parameters are identified for an Eulerian steady state simulation by comparison with experimental results. Simulations of the transient plunge and welding phases help to better understand the deposition process that occurs at the trailing edge of the probe, and in particular possible void formation. Flexibility and robustness of the model allows investigating the influence of threads and tooling designs

Understanding the material flow path of friction stir welding process using unthreaded tools

“…The interest of such numerical models to simulate FSW processing is clear and has been demonstrated by many literature works. Numerical simulations have been widely used to obtain temperature and mechanical fields (Schmidt and Hattel, 2005;Zhang and Zhang, 2008;Bastier et al, 2008;Fourment and Guerdoux, 2008). They provide a better understanding of the flow and heating mechanisms of FSW depending on the tool profiles, rotation speed, velocity speed, axial force (Colegrove and Shercliff, 2006;Zhang and Zhang, 2009b) in order to optimize the FSW process.…”

A Semianalytical Thermal Model for Fiction Stir Welding

“…Finally, separation between the workpiece and the tool was allowed. In their work, Fourment and Guerdoux [11] simulated the different stages of the FSW process. Steady-state welding, but also transient phases, were simulated, showing good robustness and accuracy of the developed formulation.…”

Modelling welding residual stress and distortion: Current and future research trends

“…However, all current ALE models of FSW require adaptive remeshing that over time introduces numerical errors. 55 Owing to the difficulty of dealing with mesh distortion, most investigators using a Lagrangian modelling approach ignore the material flow and instead assume that stress and deformation in FSW are caused by thermal expansion only. [58][59][60][61][62] The temperature distribution is provided by either a pure conduction analysis using a distributed heat input model or a CFD analysis of the stir zone.…”