Abstract

The industrial applications of aluminum alloys have a wide range in mechanical engineering, therefore, the welding of aluminum alloy is very important in production of a structure combined from aluminum alloy materials. Thus, the friction stir welding technique is used to welding the aluminum alloy materials, thus, the investigation for effect of temperature and other parameters on the friction stir welding will be carried out. Also, since the aluminum alloys used in most engineering applications is subjected to fatigue load, therefore, fatigue life in friction stir welding including the effects of temperature should be studied. The investigation included the evaluation the fatigue life of welding by using experimental techniques. The experimental technique covered manufacturing fatigue device for friction stir welding with effect of different temperature (75, 100, 125, and 150 oC), and then, measurement the fatigue behavior for welding was achieved. The experimental work included the evaluation of the tensile properties and the microstructure for friction stir welding. Where, the aluminum alloy studied in this work is aluminum alloy 2024. The results showed that the fatigue life for welding of aluminum alloy decreases with increasing the temperature applied on the alloy materials. Also, the results showed that the tensile properties for friction stir welding are the best at rotation speed (1800 RPM). Finally, the experimental fatigue results with and without temperature effect are compared with numerical fatigue results calculated by using finite element methods by adopting Ansys program Ver. 16.1. The comparison of fatigue results for friction stir welding gave a good agreement between experimental and numerical techniques used with maximum discrepancy about (9.7%).