ROTARY FRICTION WELDING OF ALUMINIUM USING

LATHE
Girithar T A (112117020), S Sahithi (112117052), S Sahithya (112117053), Surya R M (112117056)
U Aditya (112117057), Vivek S (112117062)

Metallurgical and Material Engineering

Keywords: Abstract:
Aluminium is remarkable for its low density and its ability to
Aluminium
resist corrosion through the phenomenon of passivation. Aluminium and
Alloy
its alloys are vital to the aerospace industry and important in transportation and
Friction building industries, such as building facades and window
Welding frames. The oxides and sulphates are the most useful compounds of aluminium.
Lathe Conventional welding technique is used to weld only hard materials and when
defects like porosity, alloy segregation, hot cracking and hydrogen embrittlement
Tensile are encountered. Therefore, friction welding is employed to weld soft materials
strength while also overcoming the defects of conventional welding techniques. This
welding technique which welds both similar and dissimilar metals finds its
Hardness
applications like submarine, aerospace and automobile industries because it is
Fracture simple economic and highly productive.
Industries, generally, aim to earn profits with limited resources, but the problem
lies in the cost and space requirements. To eliminate this problem Rotary Friction
welding using a lathe machine can be used, to avoid using a separate machine for
welding which in turn will consume more resources and space.
Our project describes the low-cost method of frictional welding on conventional
lathe machine and to analyse the welding parameters.

1. Introduction developed from a friction stir welding (FSW)

Welding is a fabrication process that joins
materials usually metals or thermoplastics by
causing fusion which is somewhat different
from low temperature metal joining techniques
like brazing and soldering that doesn't melt the
base metal. In addition to melting the base
metal, a filler metal is typically added to the
joint to form a pool of molten metal also called
as weld pool which later cools to form a joint
stronger than that of the base metal. Pressure
may also be used in conjunction with heat to
produce a weld.
Rotary Friction Welding (RFW) process, is
one of the methods in solid state welding, was
relying on heat input from the friction between
the surfaces of the workpiece. In the RFW
process, one of the workpieces is kept
stationary and the other workpiece is rotating
to generate heat, which makes the workpiece
soften and lead them bond together. This basic
principle of the FW process is illustrated in
Fig. 1. The important parameters for RFW
include rotation speed (rpm), upset pressure
(N), friction time (second), burn-off length
(mm), and surface of workpiece etc.
The parameters for continuous drive RFW are
illustrated in Fig. 2. For RFW, there are many
advantages including excellent quality joints

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of the product, low distortion, non-filler, short
weld time, ecologically friendly, energy
efficient and little changes in the welded zone .

However, this RFW method also has some Fig. 1 The phases of the RFW process.
limits for welding. For instance, welding
workpiece with a complex shape can be very
difficult, or workpiece length become
shortened after welding. These usually occur
when welding workpiece at low melting point
because the heat input from the welding place
is not enough and the upset pressure while
welding is not high enough. Over the past
several years, non-ferrous materials such as
titanium alloy, magnesium alloy and
aluminum alloy turn popular to this RFW
method because it is widely used, especially
aluminum alloy in automotive industry, marine
industry and the aircraft industry. Aluminum-
Silicon was used in this industry because of its
high strength, lightweight and corrosion
resistance.

However, common welding aluminum is not

too easy because the oxide films often
cracking of the weld metal, especially welding
of dissimilar joint materials. This may affect
the mechanical properties of the weld metal.
However, using this RFW still has some
limitations because this welding technique
does not create enough high heat input. Only
60-80 percent of heat input was produced
comparing with the melting point of the
materials which may cause cracking in the
weld metal.

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 1.1 Introduction to Solid State Welding

Solid-state welding is a welding process in

which the two workpieces are joined under
pressure providing contact between them and
at a temperature lower than the melting point
of the material. In our case, we had done
Direct-drive friction welding. Direct-drive
friction welding is a solid-state joining process
that welds workpieces which is done by
rotating one workpiece while keeping another
workpiece still under an axial
force(compressive).

1.2 Material Used

Two aluminum cylindrical rods(symmetrical)

of diameter 1cm.

A. Period of approximation
B. Pressure, time application
C. End of pressure, time
D. Finish welding

Fig. 2. Parameters for continuous drive RFW

1.3 Introduction to Lathe

A lathe is a machine tool that rotates a

workpiece about an axis of rotation to perform
various operations such
as cutting, sanding, knurling, drilling, deforma
tion, facing, and turning, with tools that are
applied to the workpiece to create an object
with symmetry about that axis. The lathe
machine works on basic principle that when

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the work piece rotate at a constant speed and a 7. Lathe can perform turning, boring,
tool is introduce between its rotation, it cut the chamfering, shaping, facing, drilling knurling,
metal. Lathe machine is used to cut the metal grooving.
from cylindrical work piece and convert it into
desire shape. It turns the cylindrical work
piece, and during turning a sharp edge cutting
tool introduce, which cuts the metal. There are
many types of lathe machine, but each
machine consists some basic part which are
essential for its proper working. These parts
are bed, tool post, Chuck, head stock, tail
stock, legs, Gear chain, lead screw, carriage,
cross slide, split nut, apron, chip pan, guide
ways etc. These parts work together to obtain
desire motion of tool and work piece so it can
be machined.

Its working can be described as follow :

1. A cylindrical work piece fixed to the chuck.

A chuck may have three jaw or for jaw
according to the requirement. The work piece
is at the center or some eccentric according to
the process perform.

2. The spindle starts to rotate and set it at

desire speed. The spindle speed plays a huge
role during cutting. The spindle rotates the
chuck and work piece.

3. Now check the work piece is turning

properly. If it not set the work piece using dial
gauge.

4. Now set the tool at desire feed by moving 2. Experimental procedures

the tool post and carriage. The feed also plays
main role during cutting. Large feed may
cause unwanted temperature increase.
5. After it tool is introduce between moving
work piece at desire feed rate. It cut the metal
from work piece. The feed rate is set at the
cutting condition.
6. Now all unwanted metal is removed by
moving the carriage form horizontally and
vertically as desire according to the job
requirement. After completing all process, we
got a well finished job.
Conventional lathe machine is used for the
friction welding of two dissimilar metals. The
setup is done by fixing one work piece to the
chuck and the other work piece is fixed to the
drill chuck. Here the chuck is rotated where
other work piece on the drill chuck is kept
stationery. A drill chuck is fixed to the lathe
machine and the two work pieces which are to
be welded are inserted to the lathe chuck and
the drill chuck. The chuck is rotated to
maximum of 350 rpm for a friction time of 4.5
minutes, where the work piece also rotates
along with the chuck. The work piece in the
drill chuck is pressurized over the fast-rotating

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work piece. Friction is created and the
temperature increases. Continuous increase in
temperature creates a red-hot zone. At this
moment the reverse braking is applied to have
a proper weld. If there is no proper braking
system, there will not be a proper weld
formed.
2.1 Tensile test
Objective:
Characterization of mechanical properties of
the Friction welded region in aluminum.
Requirements for the experiment:

a) Tensile specimen

b) Universal Testing Machine (UTM)

c) Computer aided software to be coupled with

UTM

Specimen geometry:

Tensile specimen had been machined of the

dimensions as follows.

Diameter: 10mm

Material type: Non-ferrous (Al)

Strain rate: 0.9/s

Brief Description of the

Equipment/Machine:

A universal testing machine is used to test the

tensile stress and compressive strength of
materials. It is named after the fact that it can
perform many standard tensile and
compression tests on materials, components,
and structures. Tensile test can be done by
clamping a single piece of anything on each of
its ends and pull it apart until it breaks. This
measures how strong it is (tensile strength)
how stretchy it is (elongation), and how stiff it
is (tensile modulus).

Experimental procedure:

a) Place the sample in the tensile testing

machine and clamp it at its both ends
in the machine such that the specimen
is fixed and rigid.

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 b) Enter the dimensions and all the
required parameters of the specimen in
the computer software that is coupled
with UTM.
c) A uniform load is applied on the
specimen with a strain rate of 0.9 /s.
After some time, the specimen gets fractured
and the collection of data points and the
fracture point are noted.
Rotational speed of 350 rpm and a friction
time for 4.5 minutes. The result of this has a
tensile strength of about 7.70 MPa. While
from the reference article, a Rotational speed
of 1500 rpm and a friction time for 15 seconds
resulted in the tensile strength of about 87.24
Mpa
3. Result and Discussion Graph:

2.2 Comparison with other RFW

Aluminium:

The major parameters that influence the weld

of the materials are Rotational speed, Burn-off
length and Friction time.

● RPM:

It is proved that as the rotation speed

increases the value of hardness increases.

● Burn-off length:

It is observed that, strength of the joints

was increased with increasing of burn-off
length up to optimum value of 4 mm and
starts to decrease on further increasing of
burn-off length.

● Friction time:

The effect of friction time on the

mechanical properties was evaluated by
hardness measurement and tensile test,
while the interfacial microstructure and
fracture morphologies were analyzed by
scanning electron microscope, energy
dispersive spectroscope and X-ray
Diffraction. The results show that the
tensile strength increases with friction time
under the experimental conditions.
Explanation for the graph:
In reference to the article Rotary Friction
Welding of Dissimilar Joints between SSM356 The main thing we can infer from the graph is
and SSM6061 Aluminium Alloys Produced by that the tensile specimen used is very brittle. A
GISS, a comparison has been made to compare brittle material immediately breaks when the
each respective parameter and its effect on the load exceeds the yield strength. If it had been
result. The current experiment was done on a ductile, there would be necking, and we could

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achieve some plastic change before it ruptures research in mechanical engineering,
and fractures. The modulus of this specimen May 2014
approximately 9380 MPa and it could remain 5. Aamir khan, Danish, Modeling of
elastic only till the load is 2.8 MPa. The Friction stir welding on conventional
material fractured at 7.7 MPa load and the vertical milling machine and its
ultimate force the specimen could withstand is validation, International journal of
605 N. engineering sciences and research
technology, November 2014.
6. Selvakumar.G, Maguteeshwaran.R,
Nandhakumar.P, Sathish.M,
4. Conclusion
Vignesh.E, Peramanan.A,
Through our project we were able to conclude Manufacturing and assembly of
that the conventional lathe machine is better friction welding machine for
than friction welding machine when higher aluminium, International journal of
Rpm is provided. This is because the mechanical engineering and robotics
conventional lathe machine is less expensive research, 2014.
than the friction welding machine. Also, there 7. Indrajeet Baburao shedbale, Amar
will not be any welding defects like porosity, S.Bhandare, Design and development
hot cracking in other welding process. Very of keyway milling attachment for lathe
high static strength is achieved through this machine, International journal of
process. We have also noted that shorter engineering research and technology,
welding time improves the efficiency of the 2017..
process. Since no filler material is used, the 8. Mumin Sahin, Joining with friction
cost of the process is further minimized. welding of H.S.S and medium carbon
steel, mechanical engineering
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turkey.
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