Dissimilar friction stir welding of AA2024 and AISI 1018: Microstructure and mechanical properties

This study investigated the effect of the friction stir welding rotation rate and welding speed on the quality and properties of the dissimilar joints between aluminum and carbon steel. Plates of 4 mm thickness from both AA2024 and AISI 1018 were successfully friction stir butt welded at rotation speeds of 200, 250, and 300 rpm and welding speeds of 25, 50, and 75 mm/min. The joint quality was investigated along the top surface and the transverse cross-sections. Further investigation using scanning electron microscopy was conducted to assess the intermetallic layers and the grain refining in the stir zone. The mechanical properties were investigated using tensile testing for two samples for each weld that wire cut perpendicular to the welding direction and the hardness profiles were obtained along the transverse cross-section. Both the top surface and the transverse cross-section macrographs indicated defect free joints at a rotation rate of 250 rpm with the different welding speeds. The intermetallic compounds (IMCs) formation was significantly affected by the heat input, where there is no formation of IMCs at the Al/steel interfaces when higher traverse speed (75 mm/min) or lower rotation speed (200 rpm) were used, which gave the maximum tensile strength of about 230 MPa at the low rotation speed (200 rpm) along with 3.2% elongation. This is attributed to the low amount of heat input (22.32 J/mm) experienced. At the low traverse speed (25 mm/min and 250 rpm), a continuous layer of Al-rich IMCs FeAl3 is formed at the joint interface due to the high heat input experienced (79.5 J/mm). The formation of the IMCs facilitates fracture and reduced the tensile strength of the joint to about 98 MPa. The fracture mechanism was found to be of mixed mode and characterized by a cleavage pattern and dimples. The hardness profiles indicated a reduction in the hardness at the aluminum side and an increase at the steel side.