I am planning to take up the Friction Stir Processing to enhance the properties of magnesium alloys AZ31, AZ61, AZ91 succeeded by the Friction Stir welding of each of the material with other, to study its weldability and all other properties associated with welding. What is the current status of research in this regard and other precautions to be followed not to end up in wrong results?
Magnesium alloys can be easily friction stir processed and welded with each other. But joining them with other metals like aluminium is quite challenging.
The magnesium alloys are low heat conductive metals. Therefore, you should choose high tool rotational speed, low tool travel speed and high plunge depth and tool tilt angle can be used upto 2 degrees. You can use 18mm or 20mm tool shoulder diameter. The threaded pins and pins with flutes can be used for better mixing.
No need to worry about safety while doing friction stir processing of magnesium alloys. Mostly, people will fear about explosion of magnesium alloys when they are subjected to heat applications. It is suitable only for powder form of magnesium alloys not for plate or sheet forms. But you must carefully, clean and manage the chips of the magnesium alloys.
Dealing with magnesium alloys could be quite difficult especially melting , high temperature may corrode magnesium . You have to have nice setup to avoid these problems . Literature review is less in this area
Refer the link: Mg AZ31:https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01059733/document
Refer this journal: AZ61: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1359646203002100
Refer this journal: AZ91: http://pil.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/02/05/1464420715570987.refs
Would you suggest me from where you purchase magnesium plates of AZ31 ?
Better heat transfer setup will reduce the problem of melting and inter-metallic formation.
Magnesium alloys can be easily friction stir processed and welded with each other. But joining them with other metals like aluminium is quite challenging.
The magnesium alloys are low heat conductive metals. Therefore, you should choose high tool rotational speed, low tool travel speed and high plunge depth and tool tilt angle can be used upto 2 degrees. You can use 18mm or 20mm tool shoulder diameter. The threaded pins and pins with flutes can be used for better mixing.
No need to worry about safety while doing friction stir processing of magnesium alloys. Mostly, people will fear about explosion of magnesium alloys when they are subjected to heat applications. It is suitable only for powder form of magnesium alloys not for plate or sheet forms. But you must carefully, clean and manage the chips of the magnesium alloys.
Your tool and process parameters will depends on the Plate thickness.
R.S. Mishra, Z.Y. Ma, ‘Friction stir welding and processing’, Materials Science and Engineering R 50 (2005) 1–78
above paper has detiled account of Mg Alloys FSW..
In addition to the inputs from Mr.Balamurugan, I'd like to add that all of the the three mentioned Mg Alloys are quite soft in comparison to most Aluminium alloys (e.g. 6XXX & 5XXX series). So it is important to be careful in the selection of the downward process force (in Z axis, or normal to the material surface) value. You may also want to compare the surface quality (rms value and amount of flash) generated with a non-coated & a coated tool.
Use high quality wrought Mg alloys for FSP. Do not buy cast Mg alloy plates.
Choosing welding parameters is little tricky. Try a combination of low rotational speed and high traverse speed for successful FSW/FSP.
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