See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/271986984

The Effect of Filler ER4043 and ER5356 on Porosity Distribution of Welded

AA6061 Aluminum Alloy

Article  in  Advanced Materials Research · October 2010

DOI: 10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.146-147.987

CITATIONS READS

3 776

6 authors, including:

Nur Azida Che Lah Azman Jalar

University of Kuala Lumpur Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
31 PUBLICATIONS   201 CITATIONS    259 PUBLICATIONS   1,100 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Syarif Junaidi N. K Othman

University of Sharjah Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
128 PUBLICATIONS   1,354 CITATIONS    128 PUBLICATIONS   993 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

solder material View project

corrosion and Materials science & engineering research View project

All content following this page was uploaded by N. K Othman on 23 July 2015.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Advanced Materials Research Vols. 146-147 (2011) pp 987-990
Online available since 2010/Oct/27 at www.scientific.net
© (2011) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland
doi:10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.146-147.987

THE EFFECT OF FILLER ER4043 AND ER5356 ON POROSITY

DISTRIBUTION OF WELDED AA6061 ALUMINIUM ALLOY

N. A. Che Lah1, a, M. F. Ahmad Ibrahim2, b, A. Jalar2, c, J. Sharif 3,

N. K. Othman2 and N. M. Rashdi1
1
University Kuala Lumpur Malaysia France Institute (UniKL-MFI)
43650 Bandar Baru Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
2
School of Applied Physics, Faculty of Science and Technology,
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 UKM Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
3
Department of Mechanical and Material, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 UKM Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
a
nurazida@mfi.unikl.edu.my, bdr.ir_faizol@yahoo.com, cazmn@ukm.my

Keywords: Aluminium alloy AA6061, Filler metal, Porosity, Gas metal arc welding

Abstract. The filler metal used during welding process is believed to play an important role on
porosity formation in aluminium alloy welded. The present investigation is aimed to study the effect
of different fillers ER4043 (Al-5%Si) and ER5356 (Al-5%Mg) on porosity formation of AA6061
alloy welded joints. Butt-joint welds were made on 6 mm thick plates using 21 – 22 V arc voltages
by using Gas Metal Arc Welding process (GMAW). The hardness profile of each types of AA6061
welded joints for both fillers were characterized by the Vickers microhardness test. In order to study
the formation and distribution of porosity, the images of analysis were obtained using the X- ray
CT-Scan. It was observed that, more porosities were found in the alloy AA6061 using ER4043
compared to ER5356 filler metals with the percentage area value of porosity about 18.3 and 8.4%,
respectively. The hardness profile of ER5356 and ER4043 welded materials exhibited the similar
hardness pattern profile. It is proposed that Si and Mg contents in the filler metal could play
significant role in the distribution of porosity. No significant effect was observed on the hardness
profile for both filler metals of welded materials.

Introduction
The series 6000 aluminium alloys are widely used in structural applications due to their heat
treatable and specific mechanical properties, corrosion resistance and formability from simple to
complex profiles by extrusion [1]. Arc welding of these alloys are in good demanding but
unfortunately, weldability problems always do exist causes solidification cracking, porosity and
overaging of the heat-affected zone (HAZ) [2]. In the case of aluminium welding, one remarkable
barrier would be the tendency for porosity generation. There were some researchers reported that
the number, size, and shape of porosity were influenced by the heat input during welding process
and also the solidification rate in the weld pool [3].
Over past the years, a great number of researchers have conducted experiments to investigate
the porosity distribution using several welding techniques. Based on these experimental
observations, it was found that the distribution of porosity has a close relationship with the rate of
solidification in the weld pool. However, lack of studies has been done on the effect of filler
elements towards the porosity distribution using GMAW process. Therefore, it is essential to study
the effect of fillers ER4043 and ER5356 on porosity distribution of welded AA6061 Aluminium
alloy related issues.
In this work, the effects of filler metal elements on porosity distribution of GMAW single
butt-joint were investigated. The microhardness test and the mechanical characteristics of both

All rights reserved. No part of contents of this paper may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the
publisher: Trans Tech Publications Ltd, Switzerland, www.ttp.net. (ID: 202.185.32.2-27/10/10,12:38:05)
988 Advances in Superalloys

welded joints with different filler metals will be investigated and then discussed in term of
distribution porosity.

Materials and method

The 6 mm plates of AA6061 aluminium alloy were cut into the required sizes (300 mm x 150 mm)
by power band saw. Single ‘V’ butt joint weld design was prepared by using GMAW process. The
clamping technique was applied using appropriate types of clamps in order to avoid joint distortion.
The chemical compositions of base metal and filler wires ER5356 and ER4043 were indicated in
Table 1. The welding condition and process parameters are presented in Table 2 have been applied
during welding procedure to fabricate the joints.
X-ray CT-Scan technique was carried out to provide a three-dimensional view of porosity in
weld beads and to analyse precisely its location and position. The total area of pores was quantified
using ImageJ software in accordance with ASTM E1245 standard [4]. In addition, the hardness of
weld metal were measured by Vicker’s microhardness tester, model HMW-2000. Vicker’s hardness
was obtained on transverse cross-sections at the weld midplane, over a distance of 15 mm centered
from weld centerline. Measurements were made with a spacing of 1 mm, using a 50 gf load and
loading time 15 s.

Table 1. Chemical compositions (wt%) of base metal and fillers

Chemical compositions (wt%)
Si Fe Cu Mn Mg Cr Zn Sn Al
Base metal 6061 0.49 0.44 0.25 - 1.00 0.21 0.03 0.04 Balance
Filer wire 4043 5.20 0.80 0.25 0.05 0.05 - - - Balance
Filer wire 5356 0.27 0.40 0.10 0.10 5.00 - - - Balance

Table 2. Welding conditions and process parameters for AA6061 with ER5356 and ER4043
Welding Process GMAW
Applicable Code AWS D1.2/D1.2-2003 EDITION
voltage 21 -22 V
Current 192-213 A
Shielding Gas Argon 99.99%

Results and discussion

Fig. 1 shows the porosity position of both welded joint which were obtained from X-ray
tomography analysis. It was clearly shown that the pores were located mostly at the edges and at the
root of the weld bead in AA6061 with ER5356 (Fig. 1a) whereas, the pores of AA6061 with
ER4043 were more scattered in the centre region of weld metal, as shown in Fig. 1b. According to
Kou [3], the position of pores in weld metal was due to the effect of convections movements of
liquid aluminium in the weld pool during welding process. Microporosity (30-150 µm) and the
macrocavities (150 –300 µm) are two types of porosity which typically observed during gas metal
arc welding. These types of pores are attributed to the entrapment of gas bubbles in the weld, which
occurs due to large difference in solubility of hydrogen in liquid [5].
Fig. 2 shows the histogram of the amount of porosity versus diameter size of porosity. The
numbers of pores with 200 µm diameters were more found in AA6061 with ER4043 compared to
AA6061 with ER5356 (Fig. 2). As seen in Fig. 2b, the highest diameter size of porosity in AA6061
with ER4043 is almost reached of 300 µm. More porosity has been quantified using ImageJ
software in the AA6061 with ER4043 than that AA6061 with ER5356. The percentage of the total
area of pores for AA6061 with ER4043 and AA6061 with ER5356 are 18.3% and 8.3%,
respectively. These results were also in agreement with Fabregue et. al. [6] which reported that
welds made with silicon-based filler wires by any arc process usually exhibit more porosity than
 Advanced Materials Research Vols. 146-147 989

those made with magnesium-based filler wires. From filler metal point of view (ER5356 and
ER4043), it is believed that chemical composition in the filler wire plays a role in determining the
number and the size of porosity.

(a) (b)
Fig. 1 X-ray CT-Scan analysis on rolling direction plane of AA6061 with (a) ER5356 (b) ER4043

Fig. 3 shows the microhardness transverse profile of the base metal and for both AA6061 with
ER5356 and ER4043. Microhardness transverse profile had shown that the softened region was
obtained in the weld region. The hardness of the base metal (unwelded parent metal) in its initial T6
(solution heat treated and naturally aged) condition is approximately 125 HV. From observation, it
was clearly shown that the hardness profile of AA6061 with ER5356 exhibited the same pattern of
hardness profile with AA6061 with ER4043. The AA6061 with ER4043 has a hardness value of 75
HV, which is slightly high compared to the AA6061 with ER5356 which is 60 HV. This result
suggested that the hardness tends to be reduced almost by 40% and 52% in the weld metal region of
AA6061 with ER4043 and AA6061 with ER5356, respectively due to heat input and the usage of
filler metal with in good agreements with the previous studied [7, 8].

(a) (b)

Fig. 2 Histogram of the number of porosity versus porosity diameter sizes (µm) of AA6061 with
(a) ER5356 and (b) ER4043
990 Advances in Superalloys

Fig. 3 Microhardness transverse profile of AA6061 with ER5356 and ER4043

Summary
Based on the study of characterizing of porosity distribution in the weld metal of AA6061
aluminium welded joints with two types of filler metal (ER53546 and ER4043) fabricated by
GMAW process are summarized as follows:

1) Si and Mg elements in filler metals is proposed to play a significant role in the distribution
of porosity in AA6061 weld.
2) Welds made with ER4043 which contained 5% Si exhibited larger size compared to those
made from ER5356 which contained 5% Mg.
3) The microhardness profile for both fillers on AA6061 are slightly similar but, weld made
with ER4043 showed slightly higher mircohardness than that weld made with ER5356

References
[1] S. Maggiolino, C. Schmid: J. Mater. Process. Technol. Vol. 197 (2008), p. 237- 240
[2] Y. Ando, T. Fujimura, T. Nakazaki: Journal of The Japan Welding Society Vol. 31 (12)
(2009), p. 980-985
[3] S. Kou: Welding Metallurgy. Second Edition. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New
Jersey. Canada (2003).
[4] ASTM E1245 – 03 Standard Practice for Determining the Inclusion or Second-Phase
Constituent Content of Metals by Automatic Image Analysis (2008).
[5] N. Roy, L. Zhang, P.R. Louchez, F. H. Samuel: J. Mater. Sci. Vol. 31 (1996), p. 1243-1254
[6] D. Fabregue, A. Deschamps, M. Suery: Mater. Sci. Eng., A Vol. 506 (2009), p. 157-164
[7] A.K. Lakshminarayanan, V. Balasubramanian, K. Elangovan: Int. J. Adv. Manuf.
Technol.Vol. 40 (2009), p. 286-296
[8] V. Balasubramanian, V. Ravisankar, G. M. Reddy: Int. J. Fatigue Vol. 30 (2008), p. 405-416
 Advances in Superalloys
doi:10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.146-147

The Effect of Filler ER4043 and ER5356 on Porosity Distribution of Welded AA6061
Aluminum Alloy
doi:10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.146-147.987

View publication stats