Original Article

Proc IMechE Part B:

J Engineering Manufacture
227(3) 407–416
Acoustic emission–based monitoring Ó IMechE 2013
Reprints and permissions:
approach for friction stir welding of sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0954405412472673

aluminum alloy AA6063-T6 with pib.sagepub.com

different tool pin profiles

Senthilkumar Subramaniam, Narayanan S and Denis Ashok S

Abstract
Friction stir welding process is one of the solid-state welding processes, which is suitable to weld a range of similar
and dissimilar material combinations by moving a shouldered, rotating tool along the joint line of weld materials. In this
work, friction stir welding tools with square, circular, and triangular pin profiles are used to join the aluminum alloy
AA6063-T6 flat plates. Acoustic emission technique is applied to monitor and analyze the effect of tool pin profile on
tensile strength of the weld joints. A correlation study was made between the different acoustic emission signal para-
meters with the tensile strength of the weld joints. The proposed approach will be useful for in-process monitoring and
control of the weld quality in friction stir welding process.

Keywords
Friction stir welding, tool pin profile, acoustic emission, aluminum alloy, tensile strength

Date received: 10 August 2012; accepted: 30 November 2012

Introduction in deciding weld quality.4 An experimental study has

Friction stir welding (FSW) is a solid-state metal-joining
process invented at The Welding Institute (TWI) in 1991,
in which a nonconsumable rotating shoulder pin–type
tool is plunged slowly into the butting faces of the work
pieces and navigated along the joint line.1 Schematic dia-
gram of the FSW process is shown in Figure 1. The rela-
tive motion between the tool pin and the work plate
generates frictional heat that develops a plasticized region
around the tool and forms a solid-phase joint. FSW
demonstrates good weldments when joining aluminum
alloys, steel, titanium, and dissimilar alloys. This tech-
nique has been applied for welding aluminum alloys in
aerospace, automotive, and ship building industries.2
FSW provides enhanced joint properties and perfor-
mance, low distortion in the part after welding, a major
reduction in production costs, and less skilled labor over
conventional techniques due to automation.3
Attempts have been made to investigate the effect of
tool pin profiles and welding parameters on the tensile
strength of weld joints in FSW process. Influence of
pin shape and the tool rotational speed has been ana-
lyzed on the friction stir processing and found that the
weld parameters and tool pin shape play a major role
been carried out to investigate the effect of tool rota-
tional speed and pin profile on yield strength and elon-
gation of the weld joints.5 The effect of welding speed
and tool pin profiles on tensile strength of weld joints
was studied for FSW of AA6082-O aluminum alloy.6
The influence of specific tool geometry, speed, and
spindle torque on heat generation was analyzed for
friction stir processing.7 The effect of pin profiles and
welding speed on tensile properties of weld joint was
studied for dissimilar aluminum alloys.8 The influence
of tool design on the mechanical properties and micro-
structure in FSW was analyzed and found that the
material flow and the quality of weld joints are primar-
ily influenced by tool geometry and process para-
meters.9 Hence, monitoring of FSW process is essential
for understanding the process and tool condition.
School of Mechanical and Building Sciences, VIT University, Vellore, Tamil
Nadu, India
Corresponding author:
Senthilkumar Subramaniam, Mechatronics Division, School of Mechanical
and Building Sciences, VIT University, Vellore 632014, Tamil Nadu, India.
Email: sentilsri@gmail.com
408
Figure 1. Schematic diagram of a typical FSW process and tool.
Acoustic emission (AE) technique has been applied
to analyze and monitor the varieties of machining pro-
cesses.10 AE is the phenomenon by which transient elas-
tic waves are generated by rapid release of energy from
localized sources within a deforming material. AE tech-
nique is found to be a feasible approach for detecting
tool profile, material flow pattern, microstructures, and
mechanical properties using AE signals in FSW pro-
cess.11 The features of typical AE signals are time of hit,
rise time, amplitude, counts, duration, and frequency.
These features can be analyzed to classify the source of
AE signal as noise or defect related. Cumulative AE
counts were quantitatively correlated with the joint
strength of welds during welding process.12 Han-Ki
et al.13 have studied the relationship between the tensile
strength of weld joint and weld parameters using AE
technique. Advanced signal processing techniques have
been developed for monitoring the FSW process using
the AE signals.14
From the literature review, it can be observed that
FSW process is widely applied for joining aluminum
alloys. Many investigations have been carried out to
study the effect of tool design and process parameters
on the tensile strength of weld joints. However, the
application of AE technique for monitoring the FSW
process is found to be limited. The present work aims
at developing an approach based on AE technique for
in-process monitoring of tensile strength during FSW
process with different pin profiles.
Experimental setup
The experiments were carried out using a conventional
milling machine with a vertical attachment, a rigid
Proc IMechE Part B: J Engineering Manufacture 227(3)
clamping fixture, and an automatic feed control sys-
tem. The schematic arrangement of the experimental
setup is depicted in Figure 2. The milling machine spin-
dle has a speed range of 45–2000 r/min, a maximum
table load of 250 kg, and a spindle motor power of
5 HP. In this investigation, AA6063-T6 aluminum alloy
plates of size 100 3 50 3 6 mm were used as the work
material for butt welding, which is widely used in archi-
tectural fabrication and furniture. The chemical com-
position and mechanical properties of AA6063-T6 are
presented in Tables 1 and 2.
A welding speed of 40 mm/min and a spindle speed
of 1000 r/min were selected during the welding process.
Plunge depth was maintained at 0.3 mm. Single-pass
welding procedure was used to fabricate the butt joints.
Configuration of tool geometry
The selection of tool material and size is one of the
important aspects of FSW process. The FSW tool
should have more strength and hardness than the work
piece material. Though the tool steel is widely used as a
tool material, SS316 stainless steel was considered in
this experimental investigation due to higher hardness
compared to aluminum and practical considerations15.
The chemical composition and mechanical properties of
SS316 are presented in Tables 3 and 4. The tool
shoulder diameter was fixed as 18 mm, thrice of the pin
diameter of 6 mm. The diameter of the tool pin was
kept 6 mm, which is equal to the thickness of the work
plates that are to be welded. The experiments were car-
ried out with triangular, square, and cylindrical tool pin
profiles. Schematic diagrams of the different tools and
photographs are given in Figure 3(a) and (b). Each tool
has a pin length of 5.5 mm. The circular pin profile tool
has pin diameter equal to the thickness of the aluminum
plates. For square pin, the diagonal length was equal to
the thickness of the aluminum plates. Triangular tool
profile is inscribed in a circle of diameter equal to alu-
minum plate thickness. Tool tilt angle is a parameter to
improve the compaction of the material by the tool
shoulder. It will also help to eliminate surface defects.
For aluminum welds, a tilt angle from 0° to 2° gives a
remarkable change in the microstructure development
and material flow. Hence, in the present work, tilt angle
was fixed as 2°.
AE monitoring of FSW process
In order to maintain the weld quality, it is necessary to
monitor the welding process, so that the defects can be
detected and avoided by regulating the process para-
meters. In the present work, the R80D AE sensor
(Physical Acoustic Corporation) was mounted on base
plate for monitoring the status of the FSW process and
effective transmission of signals. A general purpose AE
sensor of stainless steel case and ceramic face with an
operating frequency range of 200–1000 kHz was uti-
lized for experiments. The surface of the base plate was
Senthilkumar et al. 409

Figure 2. Schematic diagram of experimental setup for friction stir welding.

AE: acoustic emission.

Table 1. Composition of AA6063-T6.

Elements Al Mg Fe Si Cr Cu Mn Ti Zn
wt% 97.5 0.8 0.35 0.4 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1

Table 2. Mechanical properties of AA6063-T6. Results and discussions

Ultimate tensile strength (MPa)
Tensile yield strength (MPa)
Hardness, Brinell
Thermal conductivity (W/m K)
kept free from dirt and paint. The AE sensor was
mounted closer to the weld joint line in order to avoid
signal reduction. A voltage preamplifier was used for
amplifying the AE signal. The AE signals were recorded
with the machine in the normal running mode and
found to have noises due to machine vibration at ampli-
tudes around 30–45 dB. A threshold value was fixed to
filter out the mechanical noise. The AE signal was
acquired during the welding process, progressively
amplified through the preamplifier with a 40-dB gain,
with low-frequency noise filtering and transmitted to
the signal processor. A photograph of the experimental
arrangement is shown in Figure 4(a) and (b).
241 In the present investigation, AE technique was applied
214 for analyzing the effect of circular, square, and triangu-
73 lar pin profiles on the tensile strength of butt-welded
200 aluminum alloy plates. In order to verify the consis-
tency of the measurements, three experiments were con-
ducted using each tool and AE parameters were
analyzed.
AE signals in time domain
FSW process generally produces signals that represent
burst AEs, which characterize the unsteady processes.16
Figure 5 shows the AE signal in time domain obtained
during the welding process for different profiles of tool
pin. The time-domain parameters such as total hits,
average counts, and rise time were obtained from the
AE signals for different tool profiles and are given in
Table 5. From Figure 6, it was observed that total hits
of the AE signal for the square pin have shown

Table 3. Chemical composition of SS316.

Elements Fe C Si Mn P S Cr Mo Ni
wt% 45 0.008 0.75 2 0.045 0.03 17 2.5 12
410 Proc IMechE Part B: J Engineering Manufacture 227(3)

maximum value. This is due to the pulsating action of Table 4. Mechanical properties of SS316.
the square pin profile during the process, which has
higher number of edges as compared to other profiles. Ultimate tensile strength (MPa) 515
Tensile yield strength (MPa) 205
Hardness, Brinell 217
Thermal conductivity (W/m K) 16.3
AE signals in frequency domain
The Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) of the AE signals
for different tool profiles are given in Figure 7. It can be material; hence, there is an increase in the power spec-
observed that the frequency values of the AE signals trum density (PSD) and the peaks are found to be in
are in the ranges of 100–180 kHz and 200–270 kHz, the range of frequencies 100–150 kHz. This also causes
which are above the threshold of 45 dB. The increase in the higher frequencies in the range of 200–270 kHz.
the shoulder penetration establishes a good contact When the tool shoulder withdraws contact from work
between the tool shoulder surface and the surface of the surface, the magnitude of higher frequencies also

Figure 3. (a) Dimensions of FSW tools and (b) photographic view of FSW tool pin profiles.
Senthilkumar et al. 411

Figure 4. (a) Experimental setup of FSW and (b) Close up view of experimental setup.
AE: acoustic emission.

reduces. The parameters such as energy, amplitude, and The energy of the AE refers to the area of the envel-
average frequency were obtained from the frequency- ope of the waveform. It can be observed that the aver-
domain data of AE signals and listed in Table 6. age energy level for the square pin profile is
412 Proc IMechE Part B: J Engineering Manufacture 227(3)

Figure 5. Time-domain AE signal: (a) circular pin, (b) square pin, and (c) triangular pin.

Table 5. AE parameters in time domain.

Tool pin profiles Total AE hits Average AE counts Rise time (ms)
Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3 Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3 Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3

Circular pin 759 680 719 202 192 195 1191 1160 1145
Square pin 1986 1994 1847 183 175 179 2003 1970 1986
Triangular pin 540 580 454 368 358 360 1162 1235 1210

AE: acoustic emission.

significantly higher than the other pins from Figure 8.
AE amplitude of the signal is the greatest measured
voltage in a waveform and is measured in decibels.
This parameter determines the detectability of the sig-
nal. It is observed that the amplitude and energy level
of the AE signal are high for the square pin profile; this
is due to the pulsating action of the square pin profile
during the process, which has higher number of edges
as compared to other profiles.
Weld strength analysis using tensile testing
The welded joints are machined to the required dimen-
sions using wire-cut electrical discharge machining
(EDM) to prepare tensile specimens. A sample of a fric-
tion stir welded plate is shown in Figure 9. The tensile
test specimens were prepared as shown in Figure 10(a)
and (b), according to the American Society for Testing
and Materials (ASTM) standard, and the transverse
tensile properties of the friction stir welded joints were
evaluated using a computerized electronic tensometer.
Stress–strain curves for the specimens obtained from
different tools are given in Figure 11. The joints were
visually inspected for exterior weld defects, and they
were found to be free from any external defects.
It is observed that the specimen obtained using the
square pin profile tool has an ultimate tensile strength
of 196 MPa as shown in Table 7. From the results
Senthilkumar et al.
Figure 6. Effect of tool pin profile on total AE hits, average
counts, and rise time.
AE: acoustic emission.
obtained on tensile testing, it is found that the tool pin
shape has the significant effect on the tensile strength
of the specimen. The square pin profile has four flat
vertical faces, which enable higher pulsating flow of
material as compared to triangular pin profile. When
Figure 7. FFT plots of AE signal: (a) circular pin, (b) square pin, and (c) triangular pin.
413
the tool rotates at 1000 r/min, square pin produces 66
pulses/s as compared to 50 pulses/s by the triangular
profile. This improves the flow of material, thereby
improving the tensile strength of the specimen.
The square pin profile tool has produced FSW speci-
mens with higher tensile strength due to more number of
edges. Even though circular pin profile does not have
edges, it has a higher contact surface area than other tool
pin profiles. This increase in contact surface area
improves the tensile strength of weld joint. The square
pin profile has the advantage of more number of edges
and considerable contact surface area. Triangular pin
tool produces weld joints with lesser strength due to les-
ser contact surface area as compared to square and circu-
lar pin profiles.
Effect of tool pin profiles on tensile strength and AE
parameters
The variations in the tool profile leads to changes in
the contact area between tool and work material during
welding, which influences tensile strength of the speci-
men and AE signal parameters such as total hits,
414 Proc IMechE Part B: J Engineering Manufacture 227(3)

Table 6. AE parameters in frequency time domain.

Tool pin profiles AE energy (dB) AE amplitude (dB) Average frequency (kHz)
Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3 Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3 Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3

Circular pin 43 40 41 48 46 46 44 42 41
Square pin 88 82 83 55 50 50 74 69 70
Triangular pin 38 35 32 53 48 47 86 80 81

AE: acoustic emission.

Figure 8. Effect of tool pin profile on AE average energy,

average amplitude amplitude, and average frequency.

Figure 10. (a) Dimensions of tensile test specimen and (b)

photographic view of tensile test specimen.

Figure 9. FSW specimen produced by square pin tool at 1000

r/min.

average counts, rise time, and energy. In order to

observe the trend of the tensile strength of the weld spe-
cimens with AE parameters for different pin profiles, a
straight line is fitted between the tensile data and the
AE parameters using least squares method. Figure 12
shows the estimated trend lines and correlation coeffi-
cients for the tensile strength of specimen and AE para-
meters for different tool pin profiles.
AE parameters such as total hits, rise time, and
energy of the AE signal are found to provide an increas-
ing trend with respect to tensile strength of the speci-
men, as shown in Figure 12(a), (c), and (d), respectively.
Figure 11. Stress–strain curve for tensile test of FSW
specimens produced by different tool pin profiles.
The square pin tool produces AE signal with higher
amplitude and longer duration due to more number of
edges in the tool pin as compared to other tools. This
process leads to several threshold crossings in the AE
signal and increase in the total AE hits, AE rise time,
and AE energy. The surface area of circular pin profile
Senthilkumar et al.
Table 7. Analysis on weld strength.
Tool pin profiles Ultimate tensile strength (MPa)
Trial 1 Trial 2
Circular pin 189 186
Square pin 197 201
Triangular pin 175 174
is more than that of square and triangular pin profiles.
However, the weld strength of the specimen is found to
be lesser due to ineffective stirring action, which is
reflected by the magnitude of AE parameters.
A decreasing trend is observed between AE average
counts and tensile strength of the specimens as shown
in Figure 12(b), which may be due to short-duration
pulses produced by the square pin tool as compared to
long-duration pulses produced by triangular pin. In
addition, the contact area of the triangular pin profile
is less than the circular and square pin profiles, which
leads to reduction in tensile strength of the weld speci-
men. However, other parameters such as AE amplitude
and average frequency do not show significant correla-
tion due to scattering of data.
From the experimental results as shown in Figure
12(a)–(d), the correlation coefficients in the range of
0.62–0.77 are observed with respect to the tensile
Figure 12. Relationship between AE parameters with tensile strength of FSW specimens produced by different tool pin profiles: (a)
AE hits versus tensile strength, (b) AE average counts versus tensile strength, (c) AE rise time versus tensile strength, and (d) AE
energy versus tensile strength.
AE: acoustic emission.
415
strength of the specimens in the range between 175 and
200 MPa. As the correlation coefficients provide a mea-
sure of strength of linear association between tensile
Trial 3 strength of the weld specimens and AE parameters, a
specified range for the typical AE parameters can be
184 fixed for monitoring the tensile strength of the FSW
191
177 specimen.
Conclusion
In the present work, an experimental investigation was
carried out to study the application of AE approach
for monitoring the tensile strength of the weld joints in
FSW of AA6063-T6 alloys, under various tool pin pro-
files. In this study, square, circular, and triangular pin
profiles are considered for the FSW process. Time-
domain and frequency-domain AE parameters were
calculated for the AE signals obtained to monitor the
welding process and correlated with the tensile strength
of the specimens. The following conclusions were
drawn from this experimental investigation:
1. The tool pin profile affects the tensile strength of
the weld joints, due to the variations in the contact
area and stirring action of the tool pin, which
reflects in the weld strength of the specimen and
AE parameters.
416
2. Square pin profile FSW tool provides higher
strength weld as compared to circular and triangu-
lar pin profiles due to faster pulsating action dur-
ing welding.
3. Among the various AE parameters, total hits, aver-
age counts, rise time, and energy are found to be
consistent with the repeated measurements.
4. Total AE hits are found to provide a higher corre-
lation of 0.772 with the tensile strength of the weld
joints in range of 175–200 MPa, as compared to
AE rise time, AE energy, and average AE counts.
Future scope
Proposed approach can be extended for online moni-
toring and control of weld quality in FSW process with
suitable instrumentations and control algorithms.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any fund-
ing agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit
sectors.
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