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How To Simulate A Friction Stir Welding With ANSYS
How To Simulate A Friction Stir Welding With ANSYS
Training
Problem Description
The model used in this example is a simplified version of the thermo-mechanical model and the tool pin is ignored.
The simulation is performed in three load steps, each representing a respective phase (plunge, dwell, and traverse) of the FSW process.
2. Dwell -- Friction between the rotating tool and workpiece generates heat at the initial tool position until the workpiece temperature reaches the value required for
the welding.
3. Traverse (or Traveling) -- The rotating tool moves along the weld line.
Thermal Conductivity
16 19 21 24 29 30
(W/m C)
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Modeling
Two rectangular shaped plates 76.2 x 31.75 x 3.18 mm are used. The tool shoulder diameter is 15.24 mm. Both the workpiece (steel plates) and the tool are modeled using
coupled-field element SOLID226 with the structural-thermal option (KEYOPT(1) = 11).
A standard surface-to-surface contact pair using TARGE170 and CONTA174, as shown in the following figure. To achieve continuous bonding and simulate a perfect thermal
contact between the plates, a high thermal contact conductance (TCC) of 2E06 W/m2 C is specified. The bonding temperature is considered 1000 C.
Two real constants are specified to model friction-induced heat generation. The fraction of frictional dissipated energy converted into heat is modeled first; the FHTG real
constant is set to 1 to convert all frictional dissipated energy into heat. The factor for the distribution of heat between contact and target surfaces is defined next; the FWGT
real constant is set to 0.95, so that 95 percent of the heat generated from the friction flows into the workpiece and only five percent flows into the tool.
A low TCC value (10 W/m2 C) is specified for this contact pair because most of the heat generated transfers to the workpiece.
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3/14/2014 How To simulate a Friction stir Welding with ANSYS
The workpiece remains fixed in all stages of the simulation. The tool rotates and moves along the weld line. A pilot node is created at the center of the top surface of the
tool in order to apply the rotation and translation on the tool. The motion of the pilot node controls the motion of the entire tool. A rigid surface constraint is defined
between the pilot node (TARGE170) and the nodes of the top surface of the tool (CONTA174). A multipoint constraint (MPC) algorithm with contact surface behavior
defined as bonded always is used to constrain the contact nodes to the rigid body motion defined by the pilot node.
The following contact settings are used for the CONTA174 elements:
Boundary Conditions
For thermal Boundary Conditions, all external surfaces except the bottom surface, the value of the convection coefficient is 30 W/m2C for workpiece and tool. A high overall
heat-transfer coefficient (about 10 times the convective coefficient) of 300 W/m2 C is assumed for the conductive heat loss through the bottom surface of the workpiece.
An initial temperature of 25 C is applied on the model.
pic
For mechanical Boundary Conditions, the workpiece is fixed by clamping each plate
pic
Loading
Load Step Time Period (sec) Loadings on Pilot Node Boundary Condition
1
1 Displacement boundary condition UZ = -7.95E-07 m
plunge
2
5.5 Rotational boundary condition ROTZ = 60 RPM
Dwell
3 ROTZ = 60 RPM
22.5 Displacement and rotational boundary conditions together on the pilot node
Travelling UY = 60.96E-03 m
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The tool plunges into the workpiece at a very shallow depth, then rotates to generate heat. The depth and rotating speeds are the critical parameters for the weld
temperatures. The tool travels from one end of the welding line to the other at a speed of 2.7 mm/s.
Analysis
A transient analysis is done with large deformation effect and ramped boundary condition. According to the time period and the problem nonlinearity, the maximum time step
is restricted to 0.2.
Results
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Training
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