Effects Of Submerged Friction Stir Welding On Mechanical Properties Of AA6061 In Seawater

Abstract

In this study, Al-Mg-Si alloy AA6061-T6 plates were joined in a seawater environment using the Submerged Friction Stir Welding (SFSW) technique, and process parameters were optimized using Taguchi L9 orthogonal arrays (OA). The parameters considered were tool rotational speed, tool transverse speed, and tool pin geometry. The MINITAB-17 software was used to analyze the responses using the signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio and analysis of variance (ANOVA). The optimum process parameters for tensile strength and joint Microhardness were determined. Furthermore, the ANOVA reveals that the tool rotational speed is the most important factor in determining joint mechanical properties such as UTS and Microhardness, with transverse speed and tool pin geometries coming in second and third. Experimental results confirm the effectiveness of this approach. The parent material microstructure and submerged stir welded samples were compared using metallographic scanning electron microscopy (SEM).