Texture and mechanical properties of metal inert gas welded 6082-T651 aluminum alloy joints 1

Texture and mechanical properties of metal inert gas

welded 6082-T651 aluminum alloy joints
1 1 1 1 1 2
Qi Guangbin , Dong Honggang , Yang Jiang , Guo Baizheng , Hao Xiaohu , Xu Chenling

祁广斌，董红刚，杨江，郭柏征，郝晓虎，许晨玲

1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China;
2. Dalian Huicheng Aluminum Co., Ltd, Dalian 116105, China

Received 30 December 2020; accepted 11 February 2021

Abstract Metal inert gas (MIG) welding was conducted with 12 mm thick 6082-T651 aluminum alloy plate to investigate the microstruc-
ture and mechanical properties of welded joint. The microstructure and element distribution of weld seam were characterized by electron
backscattered diffraction (EBSD) and electron probe microanalysis (EPMA). The weld seam has typical cube texture ({001}<100>) charac-
teristics. The closer to the center of weld seam, the weaker the texture feature, the higher the proportion of high-angle grain boundaries. The
average tensile strength of joint was 232 MPa which is up to 72% of 6082 aluminum alloy base metal, and the bending angle for the root
bend test sample reached 90° without cracks. The lack of strengthening phase and the existence of welding pores and inclusions in the weld
seam caused the degradation of mechanical properties of resultant joint. The microhardness increased from the weld center to the base metal,
but the overaging zone caused by welding thermal cycle was softening part of the joint, which had lower hardness than the weld seam.

Key words 6082-T651aluminum alloy, butt joint, microstructure, mechanical property

crack caused by excessive internal stress and (3) the burn-

0 Introduction
Aluminum alloy is a typical lightweight structural ma-
terial, widely used in rail transit, aerospace and bridge con-
struction for its low density, high specific strength, excel-
[1 – 3]
lent corrosion resistance and processing moldability
6082 aluminum alloy is a heat-treatable reinforced alloy and
belongs to Al-Mg-Si series aluminum alloy with Mg and Si
as main alloying elements. Since it contains a large amount
of Mg2Si as strengthening phase, 6082 aluminum alloy has
[4 – 5]
moderate strength . In recent years, with the develop-
ment of the high-speed rail industry, the research on 6082
[6 – 8]
aluminum alloy has become a hot topic . The welding
process is inevitable for the manufacture of aluminum alloy
structural parts. However, there are some challenges in the
welding of aluminum alloys: (1) welding pores, (2) thermal
ing loss and evaporation of alloy elements, which results in
the significant reduction in mechanical properties and corro-
[9 – 10]
sion resistance of the welded joint .
At present, a large number of studies on welding of
6082 aluminum alloy mainly focused on friction stir weld-
[11 – 14] [11]
. ing (FSW) . Ehab et al. investigated the microstruc-
ture and mechanical properties of FSWed 6082 aluminum
alloy in as-welded and post-weld heat treated conditions.
Post-weld heat treatment can partially restore the softening
of the stir zone and thermal-mechanically affected zone, and
[12]
increase the joint strength and hardness. Veerendra et al.
conducted an acoustic analysis of the FSW process of 6082
aluminum alloy. The ultimate tensile strength of the FSWed
plate can be predicted by giving the regression equation
between the peak strength and the ultimate tensile strength.
[15 – 18]
In addition, a lot of literatures have explored the influ-

Foundation item: Project was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51674060) and the Collaborative Innovation
Center of Major Machine Manufacturing in Liaoning.
Corresponding author: Dong Honggang (1975 − ), Ph.D, Professor. Mainly engaged in dissimilar materials welding. E-mail:
donghg@dlut.edu.cn
doi: 10.12073/j.cw.20201230001
 2 CHINA WELDING Vol. 30 No. 1 March 2021
ence of FSW tools on the weldability of aluminum alloy.
[15]
Krishna et al. reported the influence of ridges shoulder
with polygonal pins on FSW characteristics and material
flow of 6082 aluminum alloy. The polygonal pins de-
creased the initial force required during the plunging phase
due to the shearing action of the material acted similar to the
drilling process compared to taper cylindrical pin. However,
FSW process exhibits some limitations: the low welding
speed, high equipment cost and the shape/size restrictions of
workpieces, which restrict the development and application
of FSW in the extensive manufactured aluminum alloy
product.
Fusion welding is currently one of the most important
and widely used welding methods for aluminum alloys due
to the advantages of high welding efficiency, low equip-
ment cost and low requirements on the production environ-
[19]
ment. Prasad et al. researched the influence of different
welding grooves on the hardness and tensile properties of
tungsten inert gas welded 6082 aluminum alloy. The mech-
anical property with single V and double V was better than
with single Y, the maximum strength of joint with double V
[20 – 21]
was greater than that with single V. Rakesh et al.
ducted in-depth research on 6082 aluminum alloy and car-
ried out butt and lap experiments by using alternating cur-
rent and direct current pulsed gas metal arc welding, re-
spectively. The results revealed that the three methods can
obtain welded joint with preferable appearance, good per-
[22]
formance and no welding defects. Ruan et al. reported the
mechanical properties and microstructures of 6082-T6 joints
by twin-wire metal inert-gas welding with SiO2 flux. They
found that the penetration depth of the twin-wire metal in-
Table 1 Chemical composition of the base metal and filler wire (wt.%)
Material Si Mg Mn Fe
6082-T651 0.984 0.911 0.726 0.286
ER5087 0.040 4.760 0.750 0.140
Table 2 Mechanical properties of the base metal
Material Tensile strength/MPa
6082-T651 324
The welding experiment was performed under MIG
mode by using a CMT welder (Fronius CMT Advanced 4 000).
Fig. 1 shows the geometrical shape and dimensions of the
butt joint with single-V groove of 70°. The sequence of
welding pass and the dimensional details of the groove are
shown in Fig. 1. Two kinds of welded joints were prepared
with three-layer four-pass and four-layer five-pass welding
process, and the corresponding welded joints were marked
ert gas (MIG) welded joints containing SiO2 flux was about
26% deeper than the welded joints without SiO2 flux, which
was caused by the arc shrinkage and higher arc temperature.
[23 – 24]
Chen et al. investigated the mechanical strength of
laser arc hybrid welded 6082 aluminum alloy and discussed
the relationship between pool characteristic and weld poros-
ity in this condition. Compared with pure arc welding, laser
arc hybrid welding could offer low heat input, low level of
overaging effect, small grain size and high joint strength.
The welding porosity can be reduced to below 0.5% by op-
timizing the parameters.
Most researches on fusion welding of 6082 aluminum
alloy focus on thin plates, and the studies about the welding
[25]
of thick plates above 10 mm are not enough . This work is
aimed to investigate MIG multi-pass welding process of
12 mm thick 6082 aluminum alloy plate with Al-Mg filler
wire. The microstructure, element distribution and micro-
texture characteristics are observed and analyzed. The
mechanical properties, such as tensile strength, bending
strength and microhardness of the joint at room temperat-
ure are tested.
con-
1 Materials and methods
6082-T651 aluminum alloy plate with the size of
200 mm ×100 mm ×12 mm was used as base metal (BM) in
this study, and the ER5087 filler wire with a diameter of
1.2 mm was employed for the welding experiment. The
chemical composition of 6082-T651 aluminum alloy and
filler wire is given in Table 1, and the mechanical proper-
ties of 6082-T651 aluminum alloy are listed in Table 2.
Cr Cu Zn Ti Zr Al
0.208 0.040 0.016 6 0.021 0.000 2 Balance
0.007 0.010 0.010 0.080 0.110 Balance
Yield strength/MPa Elongation (%) Hardness (HV)
290 16.0 104.6
as sample 1 and sample 2, respectively. In order to ensure
good weld appearance, a copper plate was placed under the
base metal. The welding direction was perpendicular to the
rolling direction of the base metal. Before welding, the ox-
ide films of the faying area were removed with the 800 grit
SiC sandpaper, and then the alcohol was employed to elim-
inate the surface impurities and contamination. The shield-
ing gas is high-purity argon with a purity of 99.99%. The
 Texture and mechanical properties of metal inert gas welded 6082-T651 aluminum alloy joints 3

detailed welding parameters for each pass are listed in Table 3 Welding parameters
Table 3. Weld Voltage/ Wire feed Welding
Number Current/A Gas flow/
layer V speed/ speed/ –1
–1 –1 (L·min )
70° (m·min ) (mm·min )
1 20 215–220 11 500 25

(a) s3 s4 1 2 22 275–280 13 500 25

s2 3 22 275–280 13 500 25

s1 1 20 215–220 11 500 25
3
2

2 22 245–250 12 500 25
2
70° 3 22 245–250 12 500 25
4 22 245–250 12 500 25
s4 s5
(b)
s3
s2 the microstructure and grain misorientation distribution, and
s1 the EBSD data was processed by Chanel 5 software. Ele-
3 Unit: mm
2

ment distribution of welded joint was characterized with

Fig. 1 Weld pass schematic (a) Sample 1 (b) Sample 2
In order to examine the microstructure features of wel-
ded joints, the sample was cut perpendicular to the weld
seam. The sample was ground with up to 2 000 grit SiC
sandpaper and then polished using 1.5 μm diamond polish-
ing paste. Keller Reagent (2 mL HF + 1 mL HCl + 1 mL
HNO3 + 76 mL H2O) was finally used to etch the sample
for 30 s. The microstructure of the welded joint was ob-
served by optical microscopy (OM). In addition, electron
backscattered diffraction (EBSD) was employed to analyze
electron probe microanalysis (EPMA).
The tensile test and bending test of welded joints were
carried out by a DSN-100 universal testing machine at room
temperature. The cross speed of tensile test was 4 mm/min
and the tensile strength of welded joint was averaged with
three identical tensile samples. The specific dimensions of
the tensile and bending samples are shown in Fig. 2. Micro-
hardness of the welded joint was measured by using
HUAYIN HV-1000B microhardness tester with an interval
of 1 mm under 100 g load and dwell time of 15 s. Mean-
while, the fracture surfaces of tensile samples were ob-
served by scanning electron microscope (SEM).

R25 Weld seam

(a)
25

37

100

200

(b)
20

200

Fig. 2 The dimensions of Samples (a) Tensile sample (b) Bending specimen (mm)

2 Results and discussion From the surface morphologies of two welded joints, no
welding defects are found on the front and back of the weld
2.1 Macrostructure and microstructure seam, such as cracks and undercut. Si can raise the fluidity
The appearance of two welded joints is shown in Fig. 3. of the molten pool and hot crack resistance of the resultant
 4 CHINA WELDING Vol. 30 No. 1 March 2021
Front
1
Back
Front
2
Back
Fig. 3 Appearance of the welded joints
weld seam, and Mg can improve the specific strength of
[26]
welded joint . In addition, it can be seen from the cross
section of the weld seam that there are a small number of
subcutaneous pores on the surface of the weld metal, which
is caused by the fast solidification rate of the molten pool.
However, these subcutaneous pores are mainly concen-
trated in the weld reinforcement, which has little effect on
the mechanical properties by removing the weld reinforce-
ment.
Fig. 4 shows the microstructure in BM and weld seam
of 6082 aluminum alloy butt joints. It can be seen that the
microstructure of BM is mainly the fibrous structure with
obvious rolling streamlines and the precipitation phase is
dispersed in the matrix. Fig. 4b shows the microstructure
near the fusion zone (FZ). The FZ is a transition zone
between weld seam and heat-affected zone (HAZ), and its
microstructure and chemical composition are more complic-
ated. On the side of the fusion line near weld seam, the
coarse columnar grains grow in the direction perpendicular
to the fusion line. The microstructure in HAZ undergoes a
significant change during welding, which is caused by the
dissolution and precipitation of the second phase. The pre-
cipitation process of the second phase in 6082 aluminum al-
loy includes GP zone, β'' (Mg5Si6), β' (Mg9Si5) and β
[27]
(Mg2Si) . It can be seen from Fig. 4c that the microstruc-
ture of the weld center is mainly composed of equiaxed
dendrite.
The microstructure morphology of the weld metal is re-
lated to the constitutional supercooling. As aluminum alloy
has high thermal conductivity, the rapid cooling of molten
pool results in a large temperature gradient near the fusion
line and a low degree of the constitutional supercooling,
which promotes the growth of weld metal with cell crystals.
As the cell crystal grows, the concentration of solutes (Mg,
20 mm
20 mm 6 mm
20 mm
20 mm 6 mm
Si, Mn, etc.) in the liquid phase at the front of crystalliza-
tion increases, and the degree of constitutional supercool-
ing increases, leading to the transformation of the weld met-
[28]
al crystal form from cell crystal to cell dendrite . In the
center of the weld, the solute concentration in the liquid
phase increased significantly, the temperature gradient de-
creased significantly, and the constitutional supercooling
continued to increase, resulting in the formation of equiaxed
dendrites in weld seam.
Fig. 4d shows the microstructure of the weld passes
junction of the welded joint. It can be seen that part of the
grain boundary of the fore-pass at the junction remelts be-
cause of the heating effect of the rear-pass. The rear-pass is
epitaxially grown on the basis of the melted grain of the
fore-pass. The direction of growth is opposite to the direc-
tion of heat flow, and the grains are in the form of colum-
nar crystals.
In order to further explore the microstructure character-
istics of weld seam, the texture and grain boundary misori-
entation distribution of weld seam are observed by EBSD.
The inverse pole figure (IPF) of Fig. 4d is shown in Fig. 5.
It can be seen that the IPF results in this area are consistent
with the metallographic results. There is a clear interface
transition zone between the weld passes. The edge part of
the fore-pass away from the BM has equiaxed crystal struc-
ture after undergoing second thermal cycle. The rear-pass
grows on this basis, and the direction of grain growth is
consistent with the direction of temperature gradient, which
forms a columnar crystal structure. Meanwhile, the temper-
ature gradient at the front of the solid-liquid interface gradu-
ally becomes smaller, and the crystal form gradually
[29]
changes into equiaxed crystal . It can be concluded that in
multi-pass welding, each weld seam forms a small cast
structure, which together affects the performance of the en-
 Texture and mechanical properties of metal inert gas welded 6082-T651 aluminum alloy joints
a d
(a)
50 μm
(c)
100 μm
Fig. 4 Microstructures of joint 1 (a) BM (b) FZ (c) Weld center (d) Weld passes junction
Rear-pass
Fore-pass
250 μm
Fig. 5 EBSD IPF between the weld passes
tire joint.
In order to specifically investigate the texture dis-
tribution in this area, the pole figure (PF) of rear-pass is
calculated in Fig. 6. It can be seen that cube texture
({001}<110>) is obtained in this zone. The maximum pole
density is 10.40 times more than the random background.
This indicates that the weighted distribution of polar projec-
tion points on the polar equatorial plane is relatively con-
centrated, and the microtexture is relatively strong.
The distribution of grain boundary misorientation in the
5
c
b
(b)
Fusion line
WS HAZ
50 μm
(d)
100 μm
rear-pass is illustrated in Fig. 7. The proportions of grains
with different grain boundary angle are: 58% (θ<10°), 3.6%
(10°<θ<15°) and 38.4% (θ>15°), respectively. In this re-
gion, there is a relatively high proportion of low-angle grain
boundaries. This is because the grain boundary misoriented
angle determines the magnitude of the grain boundary en-
ergy. In order to minimize the interface reaction energy, it is
easy to generate grains with similar orientation (small mis-
oriented angle). This result is also consistent with the res-
ults observed by other researchers in 6 000 series of alumin-
[30]
um alloys .
The EBSD result of weld center was shown in Fig. 8. As
shown in Fig. 8a, the grains in the weld center change from
columnar to equiaxed. PF of this region is calculated and
the result is shown in Fig. 8b. The density peak of the weld
center is dispersing and the highest pole density is only 6.07
times more than the random background. It indicates that
from the edge of the weld seam to the center, as the struc-
ture changes, the microtexture also weakens. Fig. 8c shows
the grain boundary misorientation distribution of this re-
gion. Compared with Fig. 7, the proportion of high-angle
grain boundaries increases significantly and the ratio is
 6 CHINA WELDING Vol. 30 No. 1 March 2021

Y0
{100} {110} {111}

X0 Max=10.40
2
4
6
8

Fig. 6 The pole figure of rear-pass

70%. It is mainly because as the grain grows, some low-

angle grain boundaries will merge, which will eventually be
0.5 converted into high-angle grain boundaries. For high-angle
grain boundaries, the angle between the slip planes is very
0.4 large, which will cause dislocations to accumulate at the
Frequency (%)

Angle range θ<10° 10°<θ<15° θ>15° grain boundaries. When the crack propagates to the high-
0.3 Percentage (%) 58 3.6 38.4
angle grain boundaries, it needs to overcome and consume a
lot of energy, so the strength of the material is improved. It
0.2
should be noted that even inside the weld seam, the texture
0.1 is not uniform due to the mode the molten pool solidified,
especially in multi-pass welding. If there is a preferred ori-
0 entation in the microstructure, the properties will show an-
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
isotropy, which has a certain influence on the processing
Misorientation angle/(°)
and performance of materials.

Fig. 7 The grain boundary misorientation distribution of

rear-pass 2.2 Distribution of alloying elements
Fig. 9 shows the major element distribution of the BM.

(a) 0.12 (b)

0.10
Angle range θ<10° 10°<θ<15° θ>15°
Frequency (%)

0.08 Percentage (%) 25 5 70

0.06

0.04

0.02

250 μm 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Misorientation angle/(°)
Y0
{100} {110} {111}
(c)

Max=6.07
X0 1
2
3
4
5

Fig. 8 The EBSD result of weld center (a) IPF in weld center (b) The grain boundary misorientation distribution (c) PF
 Texture and mechanical properties of metal inert gas welded 6082-T651 aluminum alloy joints 7

COMPO Lv Al Conc. %
(a) 4 095.0
(b)
100.0
3 858.1 93.8
3 611.1 87.5
3 369.2 81.3
3 127.3 75.0
2 885.3 68.8
2 843.4 62.5
2 401.4 56.3
2 159.5 50.0
A B 1 917.6 43.8
1 675.6 37.5
1 433.7 31.3
1 191.8 25.0
949.8 18.8
707.9 12.5
465.9 6.3
50 μm 224.0
Ave 1959.2
50 μm 0.0
Ave 91.9

Si Conc. % Mg Conc. %
(c) 18.0
(d) 35.0
16.8 32.6
15.6 30.3
14.4 27.9
13.2 25.5
11.9 23.1
10.7 20.8
9.5 18.4
8.3 16.0
7.1 13.6
5.9 11.3
4.7 8.9
3.5 6.5
2.3 4.2
1.1 1.8
0.0 0.0
50 μm 0.0 50 μm 0.0
Ave 0.6 Ave 0.9

Fe Conc. % Mn Conc. %
(e) 20.0
(f) 20.0
18.6 18.6
17.3 17.3
15.9 15.9
14.6 14.6
13.2 13.2
11.9 11.9
10.5 10.5
9.2 9.2
7.8 7.8
6.4 6.4
5.1 5.1
3.7 3.7
2.4 2.4
1.0 1.0
0.0 0.0
50 μm 0.0 50 μm 0.0
Ave 0.5 Ave 0.8

Fig. 9 Backscattered electron image and elemental distribution of BM (a) BSE (b) A1 (c) Si (d) Mg (e) Fe (f) Mn

From the backscattered electron image, it can be clearly

Table 4 Element quantitative analysis of the specific point
seen that there are white second phases distributing on the in Fig. 9
gray Al matrix and these second phases appear as short rods Atomic percentage (%)
or spherical. Moreover, the distribution of these second Point
Al Si Fe Mn
phases has obvious directivity along the rolling direction.
Combined with the distribution of major element, the se- A 72.81 12.50 4.31 10.38
gregation of Si, Fe and Mn are in the same position. Ele- B 73.12 12.07 5.42 9.38
ment quantitative analysis of the second phases at locations
A and B is shown in Table 4 and the result also proved that
[23]
the main elements are Al, Si, Fe and Mn. So, it can be de- ening phase of 6082 aluminum alloy .
termined that the second phases are Al-Si-Fe-Mn phases, Fig. 10 shows the distribution of major alloying ele-
[7]
which are common impurity phases in aluminum alloy . ments near the fusion line. The microstructure in weld seam
However, there is also a small amount of segregation of Mg is composed of gray matrix and white grain boundary pre-
and Si in the same position. It has been inferred that the pre- cipitates. A large number of grain boundary precipitates dis-
cipitates are likely Mg2Si phase, which is the main strength- tribute intermittently at the grain boundaries of the solid
 8 CHINA WELDING Vol. 30 No. 1 March 2021

COMPO Lv Al Conc. %
(a) (b)
4 095.0 100.0
3 839.1 95.9
3 583.1 91.9
3 327.2 87.8
3 071.3 83.7
2 815.3 79.7
2 559.4 75.6
2 303.4 71.5
A 2 047.5 67.5
1 791.6 63.4
1 535.6 59.3
1 279.7 55.3
1 023.8 51.2
767.8 47.1
511.9 43.1
255.9 40.0
B 50 μm 0.0
50 μm 40.0
Ave 2143.1 Ave 714.2

Si Conc. % Mg Conc. %
(c) (d) 15.0
20.0
18.6 14.0
17.3 13.0
15.9 11.9
14.6 10.9
13.2 9.9
11.9 8.9
10.5 7.9
9.2 6.9
7.8 5.8
6.4 4.8
5.1 3.8
3.7 2.8
2.4 1.8
1.0 0.8
0.0 0.0
50 μm 0.0 50 μm 0.0
Ave 10.5 Ave 10.5

Fe Conc. % Mn Conc. %
(e) 18.0
(f) 20.0
16.8 18.6
15.6 17.3
14.3 15.9
13.1 14.6
11.9 13.2
10.7 11.9
9.5 10.5
8.2 9.2
7.0 7.8
5.8 6.4
4.6 5.1
3.4 3.7
2.1 2.4
0.9 1.0
0.0 0.0
50 μm 0.0 50 μm 0.0
Ave 0.7 Ave 0.7

Fig. 10 Backscattered electron image and elemental distribution of FZ

solution and a small amount of impurity phases also precip-
itate in weld seam and BM. It can be seen that there are a
large amount of segregation of Mg and Si at the grain
boundary. This is because Mg and Si diffuse to the front of
the solid-liquid interface when α-Al solid solution crystal-
lizes. In addition, the white second phases are mainly com-
posed of Fe, Mn and Si at zone A and zone B, which are the
same as the second phases contained in the BM. This also
proves that the edge of the weld seam is formed by the mix
and resolidification of the liquefied BM and filler wire.
2.3 Mechanical properties
The macro morphology of tensile fracture samples is
shown in Fig. 11. The fracture of sample 1 occurs in the
weld seam and HAZ, while the fracture of sample 2 occurs
in the HAZ. The weld reinforcement of sample 1 is relat-
ively small, and the subcutaneous pores can easily become
the source of cracks, causing cracks to initiate at the weld
seam. Besides, the initial fracture position locates at the
junction of the weld passes, which may be caused by inclu-
sions from incomplete welding slag cleaning. Then the
crack propagates in the HAZ due to the softening of this
area. The average tensile strength of sample 1 welded joint
is 220 MPa, which is 68% of the BM strength. The average
tensile strength of sample 2 is 232 MPa, which reaches 72%
of the BM strength.
The fracture morphology of tensile samples is shown in
Fig. 12. It can be clearly seen from Fig. 12a that there are
two different morphology on the fracture surface of sample
1. Fig. 12b is an enlarged view of zone A in HAZ. The frac-
 Texture and mechanical properties of metal inert gas welded 6082-T651 aluminum alloy joints 9

(a) (a)
A
Weld seam

HAZ

Pore
(b) B
20 μm
HAZ
(b)

C
Fig. 11 Fracture positions of joints (a) Sample 1 (b) Sa-
mple 2

ture surface has numerous of dimples, which indicated the

2 μm
ductile fracture mode. Moreover, secondary phase particles
can also be seen in the center of the dimple. The EDS ana- (c)
lysis shows that these secondary phase particles are Al-Si-
Fe-Mn phases mentioned above. Fig. 12c is an enlarged
view of zone B in weld seam. This region is also composed
of many dimples, showing a clear ductile fracture mode.
However, compared with zone A, the size of the dimple is
smaller. In addition, obvious pores can be seen on the frac-
ture surface. During tensile testing, large stress concentra-
tion occurs around the pores, which making the pores a 2 μm
source of cracks. Besides, the pores would reduce the ef-
fective bearing area of the joint. Consequently, the strength (d)
of the welded joint is reduced.
Fig. 12d shows the tensile fracture surface of sample 2. D
Different sizes of dimples can be observed on the fracture
surface, which indicated the ductile fracture feature. It can
be seen from the inserted enlarged view that many second-
ary phase particles are found on the fracture surface. These
particles can improve the strength of welded joint by inhib- 10 μm
iting the dislocation slip during tensile test. The EDS ana-
lysis results of point D (Table 5) proves that the main ele-
ments of these particles are Ai, Si, Fe, Mn and its content is Fig. 12 Fracture morphology of (a) Sample 1 (b) Enlar-
ged view of zone A (c) Enlarged view of zone B and
similar to point C. Therefore, these secondary phase
(d) Sample 2
particles are still the Al-Si-Fe-Mn phases.
Sample 1 and sample 2 after bending test are displayed
in Fig. 13. The joint surface on one side of the groove is Table 5 EDS analysis results of the specific point in Fig. 12
defined as the front of the joint, and the other side, the gap Atomic percentage (%)
side, is the back of the joint. According to China Standard Position
Al Si Fe Mn
GB/T 2 653-2008, the sample undergoes face bending when
C 74.33 6.65 6.76 9.17
the tension face is on the front of the welded joint, and it un-
D 72.39 11.84 5.76 8.00
dergoes root bending while the tension face is on the back
 10 CHINA WELDING Vol. 30 No. 1 March 2021
(a)
Front
Back
(b) 48°
Cracking
(c)
(d)
52°
Cracking
Fig. 13 Appearance of the bending samples (a) Root bend-
ing of sample 1 (b) Face bending of sample 1 (c) Root bend-
ing of sample 2 and (d) Face bending of sample 2
of the welded joint. The bending test results show that root
bending of two samples can reach 90° without cracks, as
shown in Fig. 13a and Fig. 13c. However, when the face
bending was about 50°, cracks appeared, as shown in
Fig. 13b and Fig. 13d. The fracture position located in the
weld and FZ. Compared with the back of joint, the weld
zone on the front of joint is wider with relatively more de-
fects such as welding pores and inclusions. When the front
of joint is under tensile stress, welding pores will reduce the
effective bearing area, and inclusions will decrease the
bonding force of structure. Bending cracks easily initiated
and propagated in the dense area of defects.
Fig. 14 shows the distribution of microhardness in the
welded joints. The distribution trend of microhardness in
the two welded joints is similar and roughly symmetrical. In
Fig. 14b, the microhardness of the weld metal of layer 4 is
about 70 HV, which is lower than that of the base metal.
Generally, the microhardness is closely related to the micro-
structure. The weld metal is mainly α-Al solid solution and
lacks strengthening phases, which makes the microhardness
value relatively low. With the distance from the weld center
increasing, the microhardness value gradually increases to
about 82 HV. However, there is a softening zone in HAZ,
due to the welding heat cycle and the dissolution and pre-
cipitation of the precipitated phase resulting in overaging
phenomenon. As it moves away from the weld center, the
softening effect generated by this thermal effect decreases,
and the hardness increases until the hardness of the BM is
restored. Therefore, there are two weak areas in the 6082-
T651 aluminum alloy welded joints. One is the weld seam,
and the other is the overaging HAZ.
Compared with layer 4, the width of weld seam of layer
2 is only about 7 mm, but its microhardness value is the
same as that of layer 4. However, due to the secondary heat-
ing effect of the rear-pass on the fore-pass, the overaging
phenomenon is more serious, so it also has a wider over-
aging zone. The minimum microhardness at 7 mm from the
weld center reaches 57.9 HV. As the distance from the weld
center increases, the microhardness gradually returns to that
[31]
of the BM. Zhang et al. used MIG to weld 6082-T6 alu-
minum alloy and got the same microhardness results. And
they also studied the microhardness variation caused by the
phase transformation after paint baking, and found that the
microhardness of the weld seam and overaging zone was
greatly improved after three baking cycles.
The weld seam is a typical casting structure, and its
property depends on the chemical composition and crystal-
[32]
lization process of the filler wire . The precipitation of
second phases is inhibited upon solidification due to the
rapid cooling rate of the weld metal, so the weld seam is
with mainly supersaturated α-Al solid solution. The lack of
precipitated phases strengthening is the main reason for the
lower tensile strength and hardness of the weld seam. In
multi-pass welding, each welding pass will heat-treat the
joint. The dissolution and precipitation of the second phases
caused by cyclic heat treatment reduces the mechanical
properties of the HAZ. Additionally, the pores form in the
weld seam due to the oxygen and hydrogen coming from
the air, BM and welding consumables, and incomplete
welding slag cleaning causes the existence of inclusions.
Welding pores and inclusions also reduce the strength of
[9]
resultant joint .
 Texture and mechanical properties of metal inert gas welded 6082-T651 aluminum alloy joints 11

(a) Layer 3
(b)
Layer 4
Layer 2
Layer 2
Layer 1

100 HAZ WZ HAZ 100

HAZ WZ HAZ
HAZ WZ HAZ
Vickers hardness (HV)

Vickers hardness (HV)

90 Layer 1 90 Layer 4
Layer 2 Layer 2
80 Layer 3
80

70
70
60
HAZ WZ HAZ 60 HAZ WZ HAZ
50
50
−20 −10 0 10 20 −20 −10 0 10 20
Distance from weld center/mm Distance from weld center/mm

Fig. 14 Transverse microhardness distribution of different weld passes of (a) Sample 1 (b) Sample 2

3 Conclusions microstructure and mechanical properties of aluminum alloy

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