Property Evaluation of Friction Stir Welded Dissimilar Metals: AA6101-T6 and AA1350 Aluminium Alloys

Next to copper, aluminium alloys are widely used in electrical industries, because of their high electrical conductivity. AA6101-T6 and AA1350 aluminium alloys are widely used in electrical bus bars. As these alloys are joined by mechanical fasteners in electrical bus bars, the conductive area has been reduced. To avoid this problem, they should be joined without removal of metal as well as their properties. Friction stir welding technique is mainly invented for joining similar and dissimilar aluminium alloys. In this investigation, friction stir welding was done for AA6101-T6 and AA1350 aluminium alloys by varying tool traversing speed, rotational speed and tilt angle with hexagonal pin profiled tool. The analysis of variance was employed to study the effect of above parameters on mechanical properties of welded joints. From the experimental results, it is observed that welded joint with the combination of 1070 rpm rotating speed, 78 mm/min traversing speed and 2° tilt angle provides better mechanical properties. Analysis of variance shows that most significant impact on tensile strength and micro hardness are made by variation in tool rotating speed while tool tilt angle makes the most significant impact on bending strength.