2

CSIR-National Aerospace Laboratories,

Bangalore-560017, India

Microstructure, Mechanical Properties and Non- Destructive Test on

Dissimilar AA5083-AA7075 Aluminum Alloys Using GTAW

Sudhakar Indupuri1*, Barat Kaustav2, Venkateswarlu Karodi2

1
Department of Mechanical Engineering, MVGR College of Engineering (A),
Vizianagaram-535005, India.
2
CSIR-National Aerospace Laboratories, Bangalore-560017, India.
*Corresponding author.Tel: +91946660328: Fax: + 91892224173
Email: sudhakar@mvgrce.edu.in(Sudhakar.I)

Graphical abstract:
Abstract

Among all available Aluminium alloys AA 5083 Aluminium alloy (Marine

applications) and AA 7075 Aluminium alloys (Aircraft industries) are widely used
in automobile manufacturing. Demand for manufacturing flexibility by industries,
ample number of investigations on both similar and dissimilar Aluminium alloys
are done using friction stir welding and scanty of open literature is available in the
field of fusion welding. As generally the Aluminium alloys are generally tagged
as non-weldable by this technique. Thus, the present investigation aims at
determining the mechanical behaviour of welded joints made of AA 5083 and
AA7075 Aluminium alloys using ACTIG welding with 5 different currents in the
range of (80-120) amp. Tensile specimens were machined as per ASTM E8 and
subjected for finding weld strength. As the data availability is not much and there
can be a possibility of damage and degradation under structural application,
detailed test matrix has been planned. Among all the tensile specimens, the
specimen which was welded with 100 amp, has resulted in higher weld strength of
the order of 350 MPa. Irrespective of weld current used all the welded joints failed
along the heat affected zone. Single wall single image technique for radiography
was used as one of the non-destructive tests (NDT) for weldment and it has been
noticed that current range of (100-120) amp, can be used for TIG welding as it has
resulted in no significant defect, but 100 amp, welding current results in high weld
strength and minimum extent of fusion related welding defects. Hence 100 amp,
current has been recommended for welding AA5083 and AA7075 Aluminium
alloy. The microstructural examination leads to the inference that directional
coarsening has been taken place during welding. We have identified the equiaxed,
directionally solidified and mixed type of grain structure in the weld pool.

Keywords: Aluminium alloys, Fusion welding, Weld strength, Non-Destructive Test (NDT),
columnar grain, mixed mode of fracture.

1. Introduction

Steel is one of the most widely used materials across the globe because of
its lower economy and useful mechanical properties. It has gained a wide
attention in day to day life in every sector ranging from domestic applications
to transportations. Challenges offered by automobile industry such as fuel
economy and higher speed to weight ratio have opens scope to replace
conventional materials like steel with light materials such as Aluminium And
its alloys. Owing to the unique combination of properties offered by
Aluminium and its alloys stands Aluminium as one of the most versatile,
economical, and attractive metallic materials for the most demanding
engineering applications. Praveen and Yarlagadda (2005) have described high
affinity of Aluminium towards oxygen, difference in thermal conductivity,
high solubility of hydrogen and solidification shrinkage are difficulties during
welding of Aluminium and its alloys. Prior to investigate the weldability
aspects of AA5083 Aluminium alloy and AA7075 Aluminium Alloy, we have
attempted to throw a light on contemporary issues related to joining of
dissimilar Aluminium alloys. Charit and Mishra (2004) investigated on super
plasticity behavior of friction stir processed 5083 Aluminium alloy in relation
to grain size and observed that ductility decreases with increase in grain size
from 3.5 µm to 8.5 µm and deformation mechanism is found to be grain
boundary sliding. Gungor et al. (2014) took 5083 and 6082 Aluminium alloys
and fabricated both similar and dissimilar joints using friction stir welding.
They found similar joint made of 5083-5083 exhibited both best joint
performance and fatigue while 5083-6082 joint showed encountered voiding
effect under fatigue. Sankaran et al. (2008) made series of experiment by
considering Al 7050 and Al 7055 high strength Aluminium alloys dissimilar
weld joints using friction stir welding. They correlated microstructure,
chemical composition and processing parameters with weld strength and
developed process maps. They used these process maps for obtaining desired
combinations of properties for intended application using those used
Aluminium alloys. Hashimoto et al. (2000) fabricated friction stir weldments
using 2024, 5083 and 7075 Aluminium alloys. They observed that peak
temperature in the weld zone increases with the increase in ratio between
rotational speed and traverse speed. They also found that peak temperature of
the order of 5500C along weld zone while welding 5083 Aluminium alloy.
Sundaram and Murugan (2010) conducted series of dissimilar welds with 2024
and 5083 Aluminium alloy using friction stir welding. They studied the effect
of the process parameters such as tool pin profile, tool rotational speed,
welding speed and tool axial force on the mechanical properties of welds. In
addition to it, they developed mathematical regression model based on
processing parameters. They validated the regression model based results with
experimentally findings. They established during dissimilar welding of 2024
and 5083 Aluminium alloys pin profile of tapered hexagon tool resulted in
highest tensile strength and tensile elongation while as lowest one is observed
with straight cylinder tool pin profile. Koilraj et al. (2012) used Taguchi
technique to optimize parameters such as rotational speed, transverse speed,
tool geometry and ratio between tool shoulder diameter and pin diameter to
have tensile strength while welding of dissimilar Al–Cu alloy AA2219-T87
and Al–Mg alloy AA5083-H321 plates using friction stir welding. They
suggested that wide range of processing parameters can be used to obtain high
efficient welded joint and soundness of joint has depended to greater extent on
ratio between tool shoulder to tool pin ratio. Squillace et al. (2006) studied the
fatigue behavior of 2024 and 7075 Aluminium alloy. They observed that flow
lines and micro voids produced during friction stir welding are responsible for
formation of fracture front during high cycle loading while undergoing fatigue
test. Da Silva et al. (2011) studied effect of joining parameters on the
mechanical properties, microstructural features and material flow produced
during friction stir welding of 2024 and 7075 Aluminium alloy. While
conducting friction stir welding, they maintained constant feed rate of 254
mm/min and varied different rotational speeds. They observed that there is
different intensity of mixing of materials with variation of speed and found
onion rings along stir zone during rotational speed of 2000 rpm.96% of weld
efficiency has been attained during rotational speed of 1000rpm and fracture
occurred along HAZ at the retreating side of 2024 Aluminium alloy. They
found the formation of recrystallized fine grains of two different grain sizes of
base metals along the stir zone. Cui et al. (2014) investigated fracture behavior
of fabricated lap joints consisting 7075/2024 and 2024/7075 using friction stir
welding. They noticed friction stir welded lap joint consisting 7075/2024 joints
show higher failure load at lower speeds when compared with 2024/7075 but
at higher speeds vice-versa. The joints fracture occurs in three modes i.e. shear
fracture along the lap interfaces, combination of both tensile fracture and the
mixed fracture of shear and tensile mode. Sun et al. (2014) has observed that
using highest welding speed and fixing AA6061 alloy plates on the advancing
side during dissimilar welding with AA7075 Aluminium alloy yielded highest
joint strength. During tensile test all the specimens were failed in a similar
fashion along the heat affected zone of AA6061 Aluminium side. Large
amount of equiaxed of different size and shallow in nature are found across
tensile failed samples. Jordan et al. (2015) obtained dissimilar weldments of
6061 and 7050 Aluminium alloys using friction stir welding. During
microhardness measurement they observed non-uniform distribution profile
across weld nugget irrespective of tool rotation speed. They found tensile
failure occurred along the area of stir zone and heat affected zone of 6061
Aluminium alloy side. They suggested that improper material mixing at low
speed is the cause for tensile failure. Essam et al. (2017) studied on the
mechanical properties of the friction stir welded Aluminium AA7075 and
AA5083 similar and dissimilar joints. They found brittle/ductile fracture mode
was found to be dominating mode of fracture during tensile test of dissimilar
weldment. They observed that there was significant grain refinement in the
range of 6-2 µm in stir zone of AA7075 Aluminium alloy with increase in weld
speed from 50-200mm/min. They also found final grain structure after friction
stir welding depends on initial characteristics of base metal. Manafi et al.
(2016) used genetic algorithm in the optimization of the process parameters of
the friction stir welding while fabricating dissimilar joints of AA 5083-H116
and AA7075-T6. They established a mathematical model between the FSW
parameters and ultimate tensile strength. They found that maximum tensile
strength of welded joints is obtained during rotational and transverse speeds of
500 rpm and 50mm/min respectively. They have also observed that dealing
with other processing parameters during friction stir welding resulted in
defects. Hamilton et al. (2017) considered the influence of weld configuration
on the materials flow, microstructure and mechanical properties during
dissimilar welding of 5083 and 7075 Aluminium alloy using friction stir
welding. They found that placing 5083 on advance side and 7075 on the
retreating side yielded most uniform material flow during friction stir welding.
They observed formation of alternative band consisting different elemental
composition and grain size in the stir zone and also weld configuration
significantly affect the material flow but does not have influence on tensile
strength. Davoodi et al. (2016) studied the corrosion behavior interfacial
region in dissimilar friction stir welded 5083 and 7023 Aluminium alloy. They
evaluated the corrosion resistance of friction stir welded region lies in between
5083 and 7023 and corrosion initiates from both weldment interfaces and areas
around intermetallic particles especially along 7023 Aluminium alloy side.
Jannet et al. (2014) compared the mechanical properties of dissimilar welds
obtained by friction stir welding and fusion welding of 6061and 5083
Aluminium alloy and found that the tensile strength of friction stir welded
joints was higher than those fabricated by fusion welding. They also observed
that width of the heat affected zone (HAZ) was narrow in friction stir welded
joints compared to fusion welding.
From the above search, it can be inferred that ample number of
investigations on dissimilar welding using AA5083 and
AA7075aluminiumalloy has been carried out using solid state welding, but
scanty of literature is found in the area of joining of AA5083 and AA7075
Aluminium alloy using fusion welding Thus, the present investigation is aimed
at welding of AA5083 and AA7075 Aluminium alloys using tungsten inert gas
welding and discussed the influence of processing parameters in light of tensile
strength properties.
2. Experimental Methods:
AA5083 Aluminium (non- heat treatable) alloy and AA7075 Aluminium (heat
treatable) alloys are received in the form of rolled plates. These plates are further
examined for chemical composition and chemical report is given in Table-1.
Ele S F C M
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