Materials Science and Engineering A 538 (2012) 81–88

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Materials Science and Engineering A

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/msea

Influence of the FSW clamping force on the final distortion and residual
stress field
V. Richter-Trummer a,b,∗ , E. Suzano b , M. Beltrão b , A. Roos b , J.F. dos Santos b , P.M.S.T. de Castro a
a
FEUP – Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto, Portugal
b
Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht, Institute of Materials Research, Materials Mecahnics, Solid State Joining Processes, Germany

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Friction stir welding (FSW) is a solid state process, leading to joints with good mechanical performance.
Received 13 October 2011 Low residual stresses and distortions are generally mentioned as further advantages, leading to the
Received in revised form 6 January 2012 current high interest of the aeronautical industry in this process.
Accepted 7 January 2012
In order to achieve these beneficial properties, the welding process requires clamping of the parts to
Available online 17 January 2012
be welded. To the authors knowledge clamping forces in FSW have not been studied in detail yet, neither
their influence on residual stress and distortion.
Keywords:
In the present work the clamping forces, both initially applied and their evolution during the weld-
AA2198
Aluminium lithium
ing process, were studied. Furthermore the influence of different clamping forces on the distortion and
Clamping force residual stress of the welded plates was analysed. The joints were subjected to mechanical testing and
Distortion microstructural analysis in order to guarantee defect free joints in all cases and in order to be able to
FSW detect influences of the clamping process on joint performance.
Residual stress It was found that higher clamping forces lead to lower distortion and a more uniform residual stress
distribution through the thickness. Higher clamping forces also lead to a lower defect probability through
the creation of gaps between the plate halves.
© 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Clamping systems and jigs hold components for the purpose of
allowing a sound joint. In order to join two parts successfully, each
component must be positioned and held securely in place during
the friction stir welding (FSW) process for example. This clamping
process should be repeatable and its influence on the joint perfor-
mance should be known in order to guarantee the required constant
quality.
The clamping process and its implications in machining pro-
cesses are relatively well understood [1]. The best clamping
locations can be calculated adequately in order to guarantee
machinability [2], but information in relation to their effect on plate
distortion is scarce.
For welding processes, especially FSW, even less information
is available. Liu et al. [3] studied the clamping force experimen-
tally for a laser beam weld. One load cell was used perpendicular
to the welding line on the plates’ plane. Whilst this leads to some
interesting results, no information is given regarding the force per-
pendicular to the plane of the plate. According to Liu and Zhang
∗ Corresponding author at: FEUP – Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do
Porto, Portugal. Tel.: +351 225082164; fax: +351 225081445.
E-mail address: Valentin@fe.up.pt (V. Richter-Trummer).
[4], for a fusion welding process model, the welding distortion
decreases with increasing restraining force. This should hold true
for the solid state welding process as well, but has not yet been ver-
ified systematically. Zain-ul-abdein et al. [5,6] developed a model
capable of predicting the distortion due to laser beam welding to
an acceptable degree of accuracy. In this model simplified clamping
conditions were also considered. To the best of the authors knowl-
edge, no information is available regarding clamping forces used in
FSW.
According to Smith et al. [7], FSW requires significant forces that
fixturing must support, which significantly increases the total pro-
cess costs. A more precise knowledge of the required forces would
therefore lead to the possibility of optimisation of clamping sys-
tems in regards to cost and efficiency.
Some works have been published regarding clamping of parts.
Clamping force adjustment by air pressure is already used indus-
trially [8] for traditional welding processes, but no information is
given on the influence of these forces on the weld quality. A dif-
ferent approach has been taken for example by the EWI [9]. Local
clamping was studied in order to be able to clamp complex struc-
tures in controlled conditions. According to this report, improved
part fit-up, weld quality and appearance may be achieved. Axial
load control is used to maintain a constant clamping force.
For the present work, a fixture device was conceived which is
able to control the initial clamping force and measure the evolution

0921-5093/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.msea.2012.01.016
82 V. Richter-Trummer et al. / Materials Science and Engineering A 538 (2012) 81–88

Table 1
AA2198-T8 tensile test results for base material in rolling and transversal direction.
Average results and standard deviations are given.

E [GPa] Rp0.2 [MPa] Rm [MPa] A [%]

Mean Std. Mean Std. Mean Std. Mean Std.

Transversal direction 71 7 450 0 499 1 15 0

Rolling direction 71 3 475 2 516 1 13 0

of the clamping force during welding both in the plane of the weld
and in vertical direction. The obtained data may be used to design
better clamping devices and to provide further input for numerical
simulations of the friction stir welding process for example.

2. Material and methods

2.1. Base material characterisation

The base material properties of AA2198-T851, were determined

in order to be able to define the welding efficiency achieved by
FSW. The gauge length was approximately 30 mm, measured by a
laser probe [10]. Table 1 summarises the material properties mea-
sured by the aforementioned tensile tests using three specimens
in each direction. As can be seen, in longitudinal direction higher
performance is obtained in this alloy.

2.2. Distortion measurement device

Due to the welding process, distortion is introduced in the parts

to be joined. In the present work the shape distortion was measured
by the stereo vision based system [11]. This system acquires in a
very short time the three-dimensional location of markers bonded
to the plate surface, and is therefore well suited to the requirement
of measuring a high number of specimens.
Schneider-Kreuznach lenses with a focal length of 50 mm and a
maximum aperture of f2.8 were used with an aperture of f8 guaran-
teeing a sharp image throughout the whole measurement volume.
The specimens were illuminated by a light emitting diode (LED)
based lighting system especially developed for this measurement
task. The use of low temperature LEDs allow achieving a very low
influence of the measurement system on the specimens to be mea-
sured. During calibration, a pixel deviation well below the limit of
0.04 defined by the manufacturer was achieved for all specimens.
The same marker points were measured before and after weld-
ing. This allows to determine the distortion introduced by the
welding process itself whilst being able to filter the initial distortion
of the plates if desired.
2.3. Instrumented clamping device
The developed clamping device is based on four instrumented
beams for the vertical load measurement and four resistive load
cells for the horizontal load measurement. Fig. 1 shows a scheme
of the equipment used.
The system was designed based on the linear elastic beam equa-
tions. Strain gauges are used as load sensing devices on this system.
All strain gauges have been installed according to the manufac-
turers specification and protective coating was applied for their
long term protection. Strain gauges with a gauge length of 6 mm
were used in the vertical clamping bars, whilst a 3 mm long gauge
length was chosen for the horizontal clamping devices, since this
combination has proven to provide the highest accuracy possible
in preliminary experiments. Whilst this approach is not as accu-
rate as using piezoelectric load cells, the achieved precision of
approximately 5%, determined experimentally by comparison to
a calibrated piezoelectric load cell, is still good enough for the
Fig. 1. Simple clamping force measurement device. (a) Overview, (b) magnification
of the clamping system showing the load application points and directions.
intended purpose. The approach presented in this work for the
clamping system was deemed to lead to the best compromise
between obtainable result quality, cost and effort.
Most of the parts used in this system are catalogue parts, easily
replaceable and with a short delivery time. Only the load sensing
elements were produced to the required specifications, in order to
be able to adjust the initial clamping loads between approximately
0 N and 2500 N. In this context, low clamping forces are considered
to be below 500 N and high clamping forces, above 2000 N.
The sensing elements have been calibrated by using a piezo-
electric reference load cell. During the calibration procedure, care
was taken not to enter the plastic zone of the load sensing devices.
Therefore, after each small loading step, the clamping system was
unloaded again in order to verify elastic behaviour. Satisfactory
results have been obtained.
The own weight of the bars has to be considered in the final ver-
tical force values. The force applied by the bars was measured when
only the own weight was being supplied to the plate. Only 25 N was
measured on each contact point on the plate (4 × 25 N). This value
may later be added to the forces measured by the instrumented
devices.
The influence of the frictional forces created by the vertical
clamping system is reduced by using PTFE (polytetrafluoroethy-
lene, commercially available as Teflon) sheets between the vertical
clamps and the aluminium plate to be welded. Nevertheless,
frictional forces still exist in this setup, and therefore the hor-
izontal force measurements are influenced. The bottom side of
the plate has frictional forces distributed on its area of approxi-
mately 0.15 × 0.5 = 0.075 m2 between an aluminium vacuum table
 V. Richter-Trummer et al. / Materials Science and Engineering A 538 (2012) 81–88
Table 2
Matrix showing the number of specimens welded using each clamping force condition.
Number of specimens Vertical clamping force [N]
0 500
Horizontal clamping force [N]
0 4 + 4 with gap
500
1000
1500
2000
2500 2 1
and the aluminium plate. The vacuum table only contacts the plate
on approximately one third of this area due to its surface pat-
tern. The top side of the plate has friction only on the contact
zones with the clamping system lubricated with Teflon sheets for
reduced friction. The frictional area on the top is approximately
2 × 0.015 × 0.0055 = 1.65 × 10−4 m2 . It was verified experimentally
that the horizontal clamping force in this system is equal to the
applied horizontal clamping force plus approximately 20% of the
applied vertical clamping force. Since an almost constant relation
exists between the vertically applied forces and the horizontally
applied forces due to friction, the clamping force measurement
device is capable of sufficiently isolating the effects of the vertical
and the horizontal clamping devices.
2.4. Experimental programme
For the present work 39 specimens have been welded in the
same conditions, changing only the clamping forces and the ini-
tial gap between the plates. Most of the process parameters were
monitored and recorded whilst welding in order to ensure a
good comparability between experiments. Monitored parameters
included the clamping force before and during the welding process,
the temperature at 10 points along the weld on both sides of the
weld using thermocouples, the process forces, both measured by
the robot and an external Kistler 3D load cell, the shape distortion
using a stereo vision based system (see Section 2.2) and the welding
parameters controlled by the welding head and robot.
Table 2 shows the number of specimens welded at each clamp-
ing force combination between the established limits. Some of the
specimens were also welded with a well-defined initial gap.
2.5. Welding
A Tricept TR805 robot with a custom force controlled FSW head
was used. The welding parameters shown in Table 3 were the same
for all joints. A threaded pin tool with three flats was used in con-
junction with a flat scroll shoulder.
3. Clamping force evolution during welding
Fig. 2 shows the evolution of the applied clamping forces and
their reaction during welding for two different scenarios. In the
Table 3
Nominal welding parameters.
Parameter Value
Plate thickness 3.18 mm
Pin length 2.8 mm
Downforce 10 kN
Advancing speed 250 mm/min
Rotational speed 600 rpm
Pin three-flat,  = 4 mm
Shoulder scroll,  = 17 mm
83
1000 1500 2000 2500
1 2
1 1 3
1
2 2 1
1
2 6 + 5 with gap
case of Fig. 2(a and c), the initial clamping force was approximately
0 N in both axes, and in the case of Fig. 2(b and d), a maximum initial
clamping force of 2500 N was applied on each clamp.
Process forces and temperature measurements during the weld-
ings did not reveal any significant difference between both cases.
Differences were however found in the final shape distortion and
the gap between both plates after welding.
Both welds were started without initial gap between the base
plates. Whilst the heavily clamped specimen retained its 0 mm gap,
the loosely clamped specimen had a gap of approximately 0.8 mm
at the start of the weld, where the pin penetrated the plates and
forced the plate halves to the sides, and 0.1 mm at the end of the
plate, see Fig. 3. This may influence the mechanical behaviour and
quality of the joint, especially at the start. After both plates were
initially welded, the tendency of separation of the plate halves was
reduced.
As can be seen from Fig. 2(a and b), the horizontal clamping force
reached a maximum of approximately 4000 N at the start of the
weld on the retreating side for both cases. Due to the plate distor-
tion, the final horizontal clamping force was significantly reduced,
whilst the final vertical clamping force shown in Fig. 2(c and d) rose
only slightly due to the shape distortion of the plate. One noticeable
difference between both specimens, is that the horizontal load cells
at the end of the weld indicate the forces introduced by the pin later
with an initial clamping force of 2500 N than in the case where 0 N
were applied initially. This could happen due to the better contact
between load cell and specimen in the case of the higher clamping
forces.
4. Influence of the clamping force on the joint properties
4.1. Mechanical and metallurgical properties
Mechanical testing and microstructural analysis were per-
formed on selected specimens, including tensile tests, micro-
hardness measurements, bending tests and a macrographic
analysis of the joint. In Fig. 4, tensile test results from a scenario
with all clamping forces at 2500 N are compared to results from a
plate welded with 0 N initial clamping forces.
Contrary to the base material experiments, a relatively high
variation between different specimens was found. Especially the
elongation after break of the loosely clamped samples near the
start of the weld was affected. Table 4 shows the average tensile
test results depending on the clamping force applied to the speci-
mens and the gap between the plate halves measured at the start
and end of the weld after welding.
As can be seen from Table 4, clamping forces below 500 N seem
to lead to slightly higher gaps between the two plate halves. On
the other hand there does not seem to be a significant influence of
the clamping force on the average tensile test results. Anyway, as
can be verified in Fig. 4, the higher clamping forces tend to lead to
less scatter in tensile properties along the joint. This may be related
to the gaps measured on the specimens after welding – especially
84 V. Richter-Trummer et al. / Materials Science and Engineering A 538 (2012) 81–88

Fig. 2. Evolution of the clamping force during a friction stir weld, with different initial forces applied. (a) Approximate initial clamping force in horizontal direction: 0 N, (b)
approximate initial clamping force in horizontal direction: 2500 N, (c) approximate initial clamping force in vertical direction: 0 N, (d) approximate initial clamping force in
vertical direction: 2500 N.

the start position of the specimen clamped with lower forces is
affected (see Fig. 4(a)). The tensile specimens taken from the start
where the gap was 0.8 mm had a noticeable less ductile behaviour
than all other specimens. In terms of tensile properties it is there-
fore recommended to keep the clamping forces high enough as to
guarantee only a very small gap (below 0.5 mm approximately),
especially at the weld start. A joint efficiency above 58% for yield
strength and above 76% for rupture strength was obtained.
Three point bending tests have shown that with an initial
gap before welding of 1 mm between the plates to be joined, no
complete 180◦ bend could be achieved. On the other hand, the
bending angle was independent of the clamping force applied and
a complete bend of 180◦ has been obtained for the lowest and
highest clamping forces when the initial gap was kept at lower
values.
Fig. 5 shows the micro-hardness evolution through the welded
section on three lines through the thickness of the plates. One near
the shoulder, one at mid-thickness and a third measurement near
the weld root. Measurements have been performed at three posi-
tions along the joint, but no variation could be found and therefore
only one section is presented.
In terms of micro-hardness evolution, no significant difference
could be detected between both plates. As can be verified, the alloy
AA2198-T851 has a significant hardness loss below the shoulder.
The loosely clamped specimen has a wider width with reduced
material properties. This happens, since the artificial ageing is

Fig. 3. Gap after welding at the start position of the joint depending on the initial clamping force. (a) Approximate initial clamping force in horizontal direction: 0 N, (b)
approximate initial clamping force in horizontal direction: 2500 N.
 V. Richter-Trummer et al. / Materials Science and Engineering A 538 (2012) 81–88 85

Table 4
Influence of the clamping condition on tensile properties and gap.

Clamping force Gap start [mm] Gap end [mm] E [GPa] Rp0.2% [MPa] Rm [MPa] A [%]

Base material – – 71 450 499 15

2500 N; 2500 N 0.1 0 72 264 380 9
2500 N; 1500 N 0.1 0.2
2500 N; 500 N 0 0.2
2500 N; 0 N 0.5 0.4 67 275 383 8
2000 N; 500 N 0.5 0.3
1500 N; 2500 N 0.1 0.2
1500 N; 1500 N 0.2 0.2 70 263 384 9
1500 N; 500 N 0.1 0.1
1000 N; 2500 N 0.6 0.3
500 N; 2500 N 0.5 0.2
500 N; 1500 N 0.4 0
500 N; 500 N 0.6 0
0 N; 2500 N 0.7 0.2 74 266 395 11
0 N; 1500 N 0.6 0
0 N; 0 N 0.8 0.1 70 267 384 8

Fig. 5. Microhardness measurements through the welded section of two welds;

Fig. 4. Tensile tests performed on AA2198-T8 joints with different clamping condi- plate thickness: 3.2 mm, measurement line location from the lower plate surface:
tions. (a) Approximate initial clamping force in horizontal and vertical directions: root = 0.6 mm, middle = 1.6 mm, shoulder = 2.6 mm. (a) Approximate initial clamping
0 N, (b) approximate initial clamping force in horizontal and vertical directions: force in horizontal and vertical directions: 0 N, (b) approximate initial clamping force
2500 N. in horizontal and vertical directions: 2500 N.
86 V. Richter-Trummer et al. / Materials Science and Engineering A 538 (2012) 81–88

Fig. 7. Out of plane distortion measured by the stereo vision based method and
parallel planes used for determination of the comparison parameter.
Fig. 6. Macrographs of the weld nugget zone depending on the applied initial clamp-
ing force. The measurement lines for the microhardness results in Fig. 5 are shown.
be seen, higher clamping forces in both the vertical and horizontal
(a) Approximate initial clamping force in horizontal direction: 0 N, (b) approximate
initial clamping force in horizontal direction: 2500 N. directions lead to a lower overall shape distortion, but the existence
of an initial gap strongly reduces this effect. The higher clamping
modified due to the relatively high temperatures in this region forces led to an overall distortion of 11.8 mm, whilst the low clamp-
and the naturally aged aluminium alloy AA2198 has a lower hard- ing forces led to an overall distortion of 14.5 mm for plates without
ness. Heat treatment after the weld would lead to a more uniform an initial gap.
hardness through the joint, but this is not always practical in real Initial gaps around 0.25–1 mm between the plates at the begin-
engineering applications. Fig. 6 shows macrographs of the weld ning of the joint reduce the stronger distortion at low clamping
nugget region of two joints welded with different clamping forces. forces and augment the smaller distortions with higher clamping
Fig. 6(b) shows a weld with 2500 N initial clamping force in both forces, reducing therefore the influence of the applied clamping
directions, and Fig. 6(a) shows a weld with 0 N initial clamping forces on distortion.
force. No significant difference between both weld joints can be
seen besides the slightly wider nugget region of the specimen 4.3. Residual stress
clamped with 0 N of initial force.
For residual stress measurements, the contour method was
4.2. Distortion chosen due to its ability to provide through the thickness infor-
mation on the residual stress distribution on a complete specimen
Since shape distortion is a difficult property to compare effi- cross section perpendicular to the section of interest. The contour
ciently amongst a large number of specimens, a parameter was method was developed by Prime at Los Alamos Laboratory in 2001
chosen which may be easily compared and used for interpretation [12]. Since its invention it has been applied to several cases prov-
of the obtained results. The difference between the initial shape of ing to be able of achieving good results [13]. The contour method
the plate halves and the final shape of the welded specimen was for residual stress measurement is used for the comparison of the
used for comparison in order to analyse only the distortion created residual stress state of two specimens, representative of the experi-
by the welding process itself whilst neglecting the different small ments. The first specimen chosen for this comparison was clamped
initial distortion of the plate halves.
One numerical value, which sufficiently characterises the whole
shape distortion, was chosen for comparison. Two flat planes, par-
allel to the best fit plane through the distorted plates centroid
were created. The distance between both planes was determined
at the nearest distance as soon as the specimen was intersected.
Fig. 7 shows an example of the planes used for definition of the
comparison parameter. Three planes may be seen: the first cutting
through the distorted shape, which represents the best fit plane for
the whole specimen though its centroid, and the second and third
planes parallel to the first, which intersect the distorted shape at
its highest and lowest point, respectively. The extracted parameter
is the distance between the second and third planes.
As can be seen, the planes parallel to the best fit plane through
the centroid of the distorted shape passing through the minimum
and maximum points of the distorted shape do not represent the
minimum distance between parallel planes enclosing the shape,
but closely resemble this information whilst retaining a simple and
fast calculation procedure. Fig. 8 shows a comparison between the
different overall distortion parameters depending on the clamping
Fig. 8. Comparison of the overall distortion depending on the applied clamping
forces in horizontal and vertical directions. The surface represents
forces. The best fit surface for specimens without initial gap is represented. Speci-
the best fit surface through all points with no initial gap using four mens with gaps greater than zero were only welded with clamping forces of (0 N;
second order polynomial segments in the X and Y directions. As can 0 N) and (2500 N; 2500 N).
 V. Richter-Trummer et al. / Materials Science and Engineering A 538 (2012) 81–88
Fig. 9. Residual stress distribution in welding direction at a cross section through the centre of the plate. Residual stresses are given in [MPa]. (a) FSW102 – horizontal and
vertical clamping forces: 0 N; 0 N, (b) FSW86 – horizontal and vertical clamping forces: 2500 N; 2500 N.
with the maximum clamping force in both the vertical and hori-
zontal directions, and the second specimen was clamped with the
minimum clamping force in both directions.
The contour method was applied in four steps [14]. First
a wire electro discharge machining cut was performed along
the surface where perpendicular residual stresses were to
be determined. Afterwards this surface was accurately mea-
sured, and after data conditioning, the shape was applied
as displacement on a refined linear elastic finite element
method (FEM) model for stress calculation. For this purpose
11,700 points were measured on the surface of each of the
plate halves using a coordinate measuring machine. Afterwards a
bi-variate spline surface was fitted to this point cloud. The smooth
spline surfaces were selected to have the minimum number of
splines, whilst still retaining a point representativity of over 99.8%.
The measured shape was applied to a FEM model with 149,500
solid quadratic brick elements with 654,039 nodes. The stresses
perpendicular to the cut surface reported in Fig. 9 were afterwards
extracted from the model.
As can be seen, both the shape distortion and the residual
stress distribution were influenced by the applied clamping force.
Higher clamping forces lead to lower distortion, which is similar to
other manufacturing techniques, such as milling [15]. Simultane-
ously, slightly higher residual stresses through the thickness were
observed. The typical M-shape residual stresses were found in both
cases, but this feature was more obvious for the higher clamping
forces. A more uniform stress was obtained across the thickness of
this specimen.
It was verified that highly distorted specimens present lower
residual stresses and less distorted specimens have higher residual
stresses, which is expectable, since the energy input was similar in
all specimens, generating the same amount of residual stresses. The
need for an equilibrium between distortion and residual stresses
leads to this interdependence between both effects. The distortion
of the plates adds a bending component to the residual stresses,
which turns the residual stress distribution less uniform across the
plate thickness.
The tensile residual stresses were strongly concentrated
beneath the shoulder region of the welded plate. Outside of this
region, zero and compressive stresses arise due to the need of bal-
ancing these tensile residual stresses in the welded region.
Since the contour method requires extrapolation of data
to the borders of the plate due to measurement restrictions
87
approximately 0.1 mm below the surface, results near the bor-
ders may be exaggerated at some points and should therefore
not receive too much attention. Nevertheless good measurement
results have been obtained.
5. Conclusions
The influence of the clamping condition on mechanical and
metallurgical properties of friction stir welded joints was deter-
mined and as a general statement it may be said that high
clamping forces in the order of 2500 N may lead to better joint
properties.
As could be seen by the results presented before, a moderate but
higher clamping force leads to lower distortion and a more uniform
residual stress distribution through the thickness. The required
equilibrium between residual stress and distortion leads on the
other hand to slightly higher residual stresses in the case of the
more rigidly clamped plate.
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the work of K.-H. Balzereit and O.
Kreinbring. The base material characterisation was performed
by Andrea Ferreri. The present work was partially funded by
the European Union COINS Project and the PhD scholarship
SFRH/BD/41061/2007 of the Portuguese Fundação para a Ciência
e Tecnologia.
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