Journal of Materials Processing Technology 213 (2013) 477–486

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Journal of Materials Processing Technology

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The effect of hardening laws and thermal softening on modeling residual stresses
in FSW of aluminum alloy 2024-T3
M.R. Sonne a,∗ , C.C. Tutum a , J.H. Hattel a , A. Simar b , B. de Meester b
a
Technical University of Denmark, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Section of Manufacturing Engineering, Building 425, Lyngby, Denmark
b
Institute of Mechanics, Materials and Civil Engineering, Universite catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

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

Article history: In the present paper, a numerical model consisting of a heat transfer analysis based on the Thermal Pseudo
Received 29 May 2012 Mechanical (TPM) model for heat generation, and a sequentially coupled quasi-static stress analysis with
Received in revised form 17 October 2012 a built-in metallurgical softening model was implemented in ABAQUS. Both isotropic and kinematic rules
Accepted 1 November 2012
of hardening were used in order to study the effect of the hardening law on the residual stresses as well
Available online 9 November 2012
as on the final yield stress. This numerical model was then applied in two different cases. Firstly, a very
simple 1D Satoh test was modeled. Different combinations of either isotropic or kinematic hardening
Keywords:
together with the metallurgical softening model were applied in order to give a first impression of the
Friction stir welding
Aluminum alloy 2024-T3
tendencies in residual stresses in friction stir welds when choosing different hardening and softening
Hardening laws behaviors. Secondly, real friction stir butt welding of aluminum alloy 2024-T3 were simulated and com-
Thermal softening pared with experimentally obtained results for both temperatures and residual stresses (using the slitting
Modeling residual stresses method). The comparisons showed good agreement regarding temperatures whereas the residual stress
Finite element analysis comparisons indicated different sensitivities for the cold and hot welding conditions toward the choice
of hardening rules and especially whether including the softening model or not.
© 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction residual stresses is very similar in all kinds of welding techniques

Friction stir welding (FSW) is an efficient solid state joining tech-
nique that, without melting, is intended to be used for joining of, for
example, high strength aluminum alloys. Also welding of dissimi-
lar materials, which are difficult to weld with traditional welding
techniques, can be handled with FSW (Steuwer et al., 2006; Lee
et al., 2009; Inada et al., 2010; Liyanage et al., 2009; Yamamoto
et al., 2008; Gerlich et al., 2008; Karlsson et al., 2001; Nandan et al.,
2007). In the FSW process shown schematically in Fig. 1, heat is
generated by the friction between the tool shoulder and the work-
piece surface and by the plastic deformation that occurs between
the toolpin and the workpiece.
Owing to the non-uniform heat generation during the FSW
process, the material under the tool is heated up, consequently
expands, however it encounters some resistance by relatively
colder material surrounding this warmer region (i.e. mainly the
material in front of the tool along the welding direction). It sub-
sequently yields in compression and plastic deformation starts
developing. This fundamental mechanism of evolution of the
∗ Corresponding author at: Produktionstorvet, Building 425, DK 2800 Kgs, Lyngby,
Denmark. Tel.: +45 45254734.
E-mail address: mrso@mek.dtu.dk (M.R. Sonne).
whether it is fusion welding or FSW. Besides the thermal gradients
due to non-uniform heat generation, mechanical boundary con-
ditions (i.e. clamping, contact conditions between the work piece
and the anvil, etc.) also play an important role for promoting plas-
tic strains, hence residual stresses. Although the level of residual
stresses resulting from the FSW process in aluminum alloys is nor-
mally believed to be somewhat lower as compared to traditional
welding techniques (Hatamleh et al., 2007; Donne et al., 2001), such
as fusion welding (see the work by Deplus et al., 2011), Bussu and
Irving (2003) showed that the residual stresses play a major role for
the fatigue crack growth in friction stir welded structures as also
mentioned by James et al. (2007). Moreover, Murphy et al. (2007)
and Bhide et al. (2006) observed also buckling behavior in welded
structures obtained using FSW. Thus, in order to understand and
control the evolution of thermal and residual stresses arising from
FSW, much work on modeling of the process has been reported in
the literature. In thermomechanical modeling of residual stresses
in FSW, the most convenient assumption is to neglect the material
flow during welding. This results in generally semi-coupled ther-
momechanical models in a Lagrangian frame, where the thermal
field is calculated prior to the mechanical field by separating the
two analyses. This means that the entire temperature history is
calculated first and is then applied in a subsequent mechanical anal-
ysis. By this approach, it is possible to use temperature dependent

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478 M.R. Sonne et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 213 (2013) 477–486
Table 1
Thermomechanical models for FE modeling of residual stresses in FSW of precipitate
hardened aluminum alloys.
Softening model/ With softening Without softening
hardening law (metallurgical model)
Isotropic Chao and Qi (1998) Shi et al. (2003)
Feng et al. (2007) Zhu and Chao (2004)
Richards et al. (2008) Li et al. (2007)
Tutum et al. (2008)
Dubourg et al. (2010)
Hattel et al. (2012)
Kinematic Bastier et al. (2008) Chen and Kovacevic
(2006)
Tutum and Hattel (2010)
material data, as well as implementing history dependent models
for the evolution of mechanical properties such as microstructural
models in the mechanical analysis. Several authors in literature
have used semi-coupled thermomechanical models without taking
material flow into account using the finite element method. In this
field of modeling FSW, different elasto-plastic models have been
used in order to predict the nonlinear behavior of the material in
the most realistic way. Generally two different hardening laws have
been used for modeling residual stresses of FSW in precipitate hard-
ened Al-alloys. The majority of the authors use isotropic hardening,
whereas others have been using a kinematic hardening law in order
to describe the elasto-plastic behavior of the material. The mechan-
ical properties will in general be changed due to the metallurgical
evolution during the welding process as well as the subsequent
cooling. This is also the case for FSW of age hardenable Al alloys in
which the softening is closely related to the volume fraction, the
size and the phase of the hardening precipitates in the alloy which
in turn will be affected by the level of temperature as well as the
holding time at elevated temperatures. In FSW, the most used type
of model for this expresses the volume fraction of the hardening
precipitates via relatively simple kinetics of precipitate dissolution
often refered to as the Myhr and Grong model (proposed by Myhr
and Grong, 1991). Chao and Qi (1998) were the first to model FSW in
a Lagrangian frame based semi-coupled thermomechanical model.
In 1998, they presented a 3D model in an in-house developed code
(predecessor of WELDSIM) using bilinear isotropic hardening, and
a simplified softening model, where the yield stress could follow a
lower curve during cooling down compared to heating up. Zhu and
Chao (2004) used WELDSIM in their model of FSW of 304L stain-
less steel with bilinear isotropic hardening, but without including
softening. Chen and Kovacevic (2006) used kinematic hardening
without softening behavior, in their parametric finite element anal-
ysis of the stress evolution during FSW in but welding of aluminum
alloy 6061-T6. Bastier et al. (2008) presented a thermomechanical
model with kinematic hardening and softening. Here, flow was also
taken into account as the mechanical model had a viscous part in
the constitutive equations. Feng et al. (2007) used isotropic hard-
ening in combination with a softening model in their modeling of
residual stresses and property distributions in FSW of aluminum
alloy 6061-T6. Richards et al. (2008) used bilinear isotropic hard-
ening with softening in their work of modeling global tensioning for
the management of residual stresses in FSW. Moreover, Tutum and
Hattel (2010) recently presented the first and so far only study in
optimization of process parameters in FSW based on residual stress
analysis, in which they used kinematic hardening and no softening
in the thermomechanical model. Also other authors modeling FSW
have used different hardening laws with or without metallurgical
softening behavior included. In Table 1 presents an overview of
some of the different contributing authors and their use of harden-
ing laws and softening behavior. This literature survey shows that
there is some inconsistency and still not any clear consensus in the
Fig. 1. Schematic view of the FSW process (Tutum and Hattel, 2010).
use of either hardening laws or metallurgical models in order to
numerically simulate residual stresses in FSW of precipitate hard-
ened Al-alloys. It is the aim of this paper to more systematically
investigate the effects of using isotropic or kinematic hardening,
with or without a metallurgical softening model, and compare this
with measurements of residual stresses obtained from experiments
of FSW for the precipitate hardened Al-alloy 2024-T3.
The structure of the paper is the following. First, the theory used
for the model is presented. Here the Thermal Pseudo Mechanical
(TPM) model for the heat transfer analysis, the different hardening
laws and the metallurgical softening model in the stress analysis
are introduced. This is followed by a small section about how the
theory is implemented into the FE software ABAQUS. In order to
get a first impression of how the different hardening laws and the
metallurgical softening model affect the residual stresses, the Satoh
test is used as preliminary application. Then in the final application,
experiments involving FSW of aluminum alloy 2024-T3 are per-
formed and measurements of residual stresses using the slitting
method are compared with results from the FE model.
2. Description of the models
2.1. Thermal model (TPM)
The thermal model for heat generation in FSW proposed by
Schmidt and Hattel (2008) is applied in this study. The heat gen-
eration is expressed as a surface heat flux from the tool shoulder
(without the tool probe) into the workpiece; however, it is a func-
tion of the tool radius and the temperature dependent yield stress
as follows
q̇surface
 2n   (T )
yield
(r, T ) = ωr(T ) = r √ ,
A 60 3
for 0 ≤ r ≤ Rshoulder (1)
where n is the number of tool revolutions per minute, r is the radial
position originating in the tool center, Rshoulder is the tool shoul-
der radius,  is the shear stress, and  yield (T) is the temperature
dependent yield stress. The model is often denoted ‘Thermal Pseudo
Mechanical’ (TPM) since the heat generation is expressed via the
temperature dependent yield stress, thus taking some mechani-
cal effects into account; however, it should be underlined that the
model is a purely thermal model involving temperature depend-
ent heat generation, and in that sense, it also uses a ‘calibration’
parameter like the more conventional procedures, which normally
rely on experimentally obtained values for the total heat gener-
ation as done in the work by Simar and Pardoen (2007) or the
friction coefficient, see the review of thermomechanical models of
the FSW process by Simar et al. (2012). The heat source is used as a
 M.R. Sonne et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 213 (2013) 477–486 479

boundary condition at the interface between the shoulder and the

work piece for the heat conduction equation

∂T
cp = ∇ · (k∇ T ) + q̇vol (2)
∂t

where  is the material density, cp is the specific heat capacity, T

is the temperature, k is the thermal conductivity and k is the volu-
metric heat source term. As for most pure thermal models of FSW,
the latter is, in this case, zero because all of the heat generation
is modeled via the boundary condition at the shoulder/workpiece
interface given by Eq. (1).

2.2. Mechanical model

Fig. 2. Uniaxial tension and compression using the two different hardening laws.
For calculation of the transient as well as the residual stress
field in the workpiece, a standard mechanical model based on the
solution of the three static force equilibrium equations is used, i.e.
2.3. Short introduction to the softening model
ij,i + pj = 0 (3)
The microstructural evolution of the material during friction stir
where pj is the body force at any point within the plate and  ij is welding is for Al-alloys in T3 condition expected to have a consid-
the stress tensor. Hooke’s law and the linear decomposition of the erable effect on the residual stress distribution. During the thermal
strain tensor as well as small strain theory are applied together with cycle of welding, dissolution, precipitation and coarsening occur in
the expression for the thermal strain the HAZ and thermomechanically affected zone (TMAZ), Genevois
et al. (2005). This results in softening of the material, with a con-
pl sequent reduction of the yield strength. Evolved numerical models
εtot
ij
= εel
ij
+ εij + ıij εth
have been developed to account for the dissolution/precipitation
el εel = C el (εtot − ε − ı εth )pl
ij = Cijkl kl ijkl ij kl kl in precipitation hardened aluminum alloys and have been applied
E
1  to FSW (Simar et al., 2012), however these are not well suited for a
el =
Cijkl (ıik ıjl + ıil ıjk ) + ıij ıkl coupling with a FE code since they are too computationally inten-
1+ 2 1−2
sive. Furthermore, it is difficult to develop such models for the 2024
(4)
1 alloy due to the requirement of accounting for the heterogeneous
εtot = (u + uj,i )
ij 2 i,j precipitation that is observed on dislocations, dispersoids and at
T2 grain boundaries in this alloy. Room temperature aging may also
occur after cooling at room temperature but that is not expected to
εth (T1 → T2 ) = ˛t dT
affect the residual stress distribution. It is therefore ignored in the
T1 present study, in which the softening model developed by Myhr and
Grong (1991) was used to predict the phase transformation during
where εij is the strain tensor, ıij is the Kronecker tensor, Cijkl is the welding as also proposed by Richards et al. (2008). This model only
elastic stiffness 4th order tensor, E is the Young’s modulus, is the accounts for the dissolution of GPB zones in the HAZ with simple
Poisson’s ratio, ˛t is the coefficient of thermal expansion and ui is analytical equations that can be introduced in the FE code ABAQUS.
the displacement vector. The model relates the fraction of dissolved hardening precipitates
Xd to the equivalent time of heat treatment, teq = t/t* (where t is
the period of time at a temperature T and t* is the time for total
2.2.1. Hardening laws precipitation dissolution at this temperature) as follows
The plastic strain is based on the standard J2 flow theory with
a temperature dependent von Mises yield surface. For isotropic  t
Ntotal 
Ntotal
ti
hardening, the elastic range expands from the initial yield stress, n
Xd = teq teq = i
=  
ti∗ Qeff
when a load above the yield stress is applied. After loading in uni- i=1 i=1 tref exp R
(1/Ti − 1/Tref )
axial tension, the load in compression must exceed the maximum
yield stress value obtained in tension to yield. For kinematic hard- f n

= 1 − Xd = 1 − teq = 1 − teq (5)
ening, instead of expanding the yield surface, it keeps its initial f0
size, but translates in stress space. This means that after loading
above the initial yield stress in compression (typical for the heat where tref is the time for total dissolution at the reference temper-
affected zone (HAZ) in welding), the yield stress in tension is some- ature Tref , R is the gas constant and Qeff is the effective activation
what lower than the initial one, see Fig. 2. This will obviously affect energy for precipitate dissolution. Eq. (5) reflects that the equiva-
the final yield stress level. Since aluminum is fcc and iron is bcc, lent time in a numerical model is found by discretizing the thermal
the Bauschinger effect is more often seen in aluminum alloys as history into small steps, calculating the equivalent time for each
compared to steel alloys. Furthermore, Fribourg et al. (2011) have step and then summing up in order to find the total equivalent
shown that in Al alloys the Baushinger effect is amplified by the time. The fraction of hardening precipitates f/f0 then relates to the
presence of strengthening non-shearable precipitates. Such precip- equivalent time teq via the fraction of dissolved precipitates Xd as
itates where observed by Genevois et al. (2005) in the heat affected shown in Eq. (5), where n is a material constant which is obtained
zone of 2024-T351 welds. Multiaxial yield criteria, for isotropic experimentally. A value of 0.5 is often used as indicated in the last
and kinematic hardening, are well-known and can be found in e.g. part of Eq. (5). Finally, the hardness and yield stress distributions
Tvergaard (2001). are predicted via linear interpolation between the original state and
480 M.R. Sonne et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 213 (2013) 477–486
Fig. 3. Upper (T3 condition) and lower yield stress (after a solution treatment)
bounds as a function of temperature.
the fully dissolved state
f f
HV = (HVmax − HVmin ) + HVmin  = (max − min )
f0 f0
+ min (6)
where HVmax and  max are the hardness and yield stress of the
material in T3 condition and HVmin and  min are the hardness and
yield stress of the solution heat treated material. This softening
model has been applied to FSW by several authors. Chao and Qi
(1998), Richards et al. (2008) and Feng et al. (2007) have used this
softening model in their FSW model. The yield stress at the instan-
taneous temperature is also found by an interpolation between the
upper and lower bound yield stress curves in proportion to Xd. In
Fig. 3, the upper and lower yield stress bounds as a function of
temperature are shown schematically.
2.4. Implementation in ABAQUS
The semi coupled thermomechanical model of the FSW process
consists of a transient thermal model and a quasi-static elasto-
plastic mechanical model as described in Sections 2.1 and 2.2,
implemented in ABAQUS. The thermal and mechanical properties
of AA 2024-T3 are given in Appendix A. In the heat transfer anal-
ysis, the moving heat source is modeled using the user subroutine
DFLUX applying Eq. (1). The yield stress data used in Eq. (1) are
given as tabular values, but in order to get the yield stress and its
derivative (used in the DFLUX subroutine) in the TPM model, the
upper yield stress curve is fitted with a 3rd order polynomial, see
Fig. 4.
Fig. 4. Upper and lower yield stress curves, and the fitted 3rd order polynomial for
2024-T3 aluminum alloy (ASM Handbook, 1993).
Fig. 5. Satoh test bar and heating profile.
Surface film conditions are also applied to the top and bottom
surfaces of the plate by the equation
q = hA(T∞ − T ) (7)
where h, the heat transfer coefficients are different in the top and
the bottom of the plate as it is clamped to a large steel backing plate,
resulting in large dissipation of heat at the bottom as compared to
the top surface which is in contact with the steady ambient air. In
the quasi-static elastoplastic analysis, the metallurgical softening
model is implemented using the ABAQUS user subroutine USDFLD.
In this subroutine, the fraction of softening is calculated as a value
between 1 (material in T3 condition) and 0 (fully softened mate-
rial). The summation is accomplished by storing the fraction value
of dissolved hardening precipitates for each time step in a state
variable (SDV). The material’s plasticity properties are written into
a large lookup data table (see Appendix A) where ABAQUS makes
a trilinear interpolation between the temperature, effective plastic
strain and softening fraction in order to determine the yield stress
in the given situation.
3. Applications
Before the main application in determining residual stresses in a
real weld in the FSW 2024-T3 aluminum alloy, a preliminary anal-
ysis with the Satoh test (Satoh, 1972) (Fig. 5) is performed. This is
chosen because it shows in a simple way the origin of the resid-
ual stresses in welded pieces. Deplus et al. (2011), used this test to
explain the tensile stresses in the weld nugget after FSW.
3.1. Satoh test
The axial stress in the Satoh test corresponds to the longitudinal
stress in the welding process. The constraints in both ends repre-
sent the resistance of the cold material against expanding material
due to the heat input. The perfect rigid constraint (see Fig. 5) is an
extreme case compared to the real welding applications. But for
benchmark testing of different theories, because of its simplicity, it
is a very useful tool for validation.
3.1.1. Temperature input for the Satoh test
The heating up and cooling down of the Satoh test are supposed
to reflect the temperature profile experienced in a point in the real
FSW piece. For this material a cut off temperature of 500 ◦ C is set for
the temperature dependent yield stress properties. Therefore the
maximum temperature in the Satoh test is set to this quantity in
order to cover the full range of the plasticity effects. As the plasticity
behavior is time independent, it is here unimportant how the max-
imum temperature of 500 ◦ C is reached. But the softening model
used in this study is time dependent, and it is hence important for
this reason to have the most correct temperature history in order to
get the fraction of softening and thereby the yield stress behavior
more realistic in the Satoh test. In literature, the theory of moving
heat sources developed by Rosenthal (1946) has been commonly
used as the analytical solution to the temperature field of welds.
 M.R. Sonne et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 213 (2013) 477–486 481

Fig. 6. Temperature distribution and softening fraction of Rosenthal’s solution heat up and cool down.

The Rosenthal transient 2D solution for a moving heat source in a

thin infinite plate is given by Eq. (8).
Q v
T − T0 = e−ω K0 (ωr); ω= (8)
2kd 2˛
where T0 is the initial temperature of the infinite plate, Q is the
rate of heat input, k is the thermal conductivity, ˛ is the thermal
diffusivity, v the welding speed and d the thickness of the thin plate.
K0 is the Bessel function of the second kind and zero’th order. r is
the distance from the moving heat source. To include heat losses
through the surface of the infinite plate, ω in K0 (ωr) can be modified
as given by the following formula from Karlsson (1986)

v2 + (˛2 h/kd)
ω= (9)
2˛
where h is the heat transfer coefficient. The temperature is calcu-
lated in a position 0.2 m from the starting point (i.e. x = 0.25 m) of the
moving source and 10 mm in transverse distance from the weld line Fig. 7. Satoh test emulating the “longitudinal stress” as a function of temperature
center. This point is chosen because it gives a temperature history with four different plastic behaviors.

with a peak temperature of approximately 500 ◦ C, which is the cut

off temperature for the minimum yield strength. The other welding
parameters for this preliminary Satoh test are d = 2 · 10−3 m, v =
2 · 10−3 m/s, Q = 1100 W, h = 600 W/(m2 K). The constants
for the Myhr and Grong softening model for aluminum alloy 2024-
T3 were found to be: Tref = 623 K, tref = 16 s, Qeff = 70.52 kJ/mol based
on measurements of the hardness as a function of high temperature
heat treatments out of the “Deepweld” European project (2008).
The Rosenthal solution is now calculated for a total time of 800 s in
time increments of 1 s. For each time step the fraction of softening is
calculated according to the procedure listed in Section 2.3. The ini-
Fig. 8. Plate and welding dimensions.
tial temperature is set to room temperature, i.e. 15 ◦ C. As expected,
the temperature history shows to have a significant impact on the
behavior is also expected to be seen in the following and final FSW
resulting fraction of softening, see Fig. 6. The fraction of precipitates
application.
with the Rosenthal solution based temperature history dropped
down to 0 after cooling down. Indeed, the 2024-T3 aluminum alloy
fully softens extremely rapidly as the temperature reaches 500 ◦ C. 3.2. FSW thermo-mechanical model

3.2.1. Experiment
3.1.2. Results
Butt welds of aluminum alloy 2024-T3 are performed on a 12-
The Satoh test is now performed using an in-house developed 1D
kW HERMLE milling machine. The plates are 70 mm wide and
FEM code written in MATLAB, where a single element is constrained
600 mm long. The welds are 550 mm long and the welds start with
as shown in Fig. 5, and is subjected to the Rosenthal temperature
the tool center 25 mm from the plate edge, see Fig. 8.
solution. The quasi-static analysis is then performed, using differ-
Welds are performed for both “cold weld” and “hot weld” condi-
ent hardening laws (isotropic or kinematic hardening) and with or
tions. For the cold weld conditions, the plates are 2 mm in thickness,
without the metallurgical softening model. The results from the
the tool has a 10 mm shoulder diameter, a pin height of 1.7 mm and
Satoh test show that there are major differences in the final resid-
a pin diameter of 4 mm, see Fig. 9. The cold FSW is performed with
ual stresses, depending on which hardening laws and metallurgical
a traveling speed of 200 mm/min and a tool rotation of 800 rpm. For
models are chosen, see Fig. 7. First of all, it is seen that all resulting
residual stresses are in tension. This is in good agreement with what
is known from other simulations and experiments on welding of
aluminum alloys. It is observed that a change in hardening law from
isotropic to kinematic hardening without softening will decrease
the residual stresses around 40 MPa in this case. Softening shows
in this Satoh test to have a major effect on the residual stresses
of the material. It is seen that the longitudinal stress reduces from
300 MPa with kinematic hardening without the softening model,
to just below 100 MPa for isotropic hardening with softening. This Fig. 9. Tool dimensions.
482 M.R. Sonne et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 213 (2013) 477–486
Table 2
Overview of settings for hot and cold welding conditions.
Cold Hot
uweld 200 mm/min 100 mm/min
n 800 rpm 400 rpm
Dpin 4 mm 5 mm
Dshoulder 10 mm 15 mm
hpin 1.7 mm 2.9 mm
Plate thickness 2.0 mm 3.175 mm
the hot weld conditions, the plates are 3.175 mm in thickness, the
tool has a 15 mm shoulder diameter, a pin height of 2.9 mm and
a pin diameter of 5 mm. The hot FSW is performed with a trav-
eling speed of 100 mm/min and a tool rotation of 400 rpm. The
denomination “cold weld” and “hot weld” is based on the heat
input computed from torque measurements Mz performed during
welding (see Jacquin et al. (2011) for more details). Those were
found to be equal to 12 and 32 Nm leading to heat inputs per unit
length (H = Mz .ω/uweld ) equal to 800 and 290 kJ/m for respectively
the “hot” and “cold” welds. An overview of the welding conditions
for cold and hot welding conditions is given in Table 2.
The welded plates are clamped to a steel backing plate with a
thickness of 80 mm, 450 mm wide and 630 mm long. During weld-
ing, measurements of temperatures are performed by introduced
0.8 mm diameter thermocouples into the aluminum plates on the
advancing and retreating sides, respectively. The positions of all the
thermocouples are given in Table 3. Note, that thermocouple no. 1
is not used.
After welding, Deplus et al. (2011) have measured the longitu-
dinal residual stresses in the plate using the slitting method (or
crack compliance method) proposed by Prime (1999). The slitting
method is a measurement method of residual stresses averaged
out over the thickness of a plate. It is a destructive method where
residual stresses are deduced from the strains resulting from the
relaxation of the residual stresses originally present in the work-
piece caused by a cut introduced along the plane normal to the
longitudinal residual stress. All measurements were obtained on
90 mm × 86.4 mm compact tension (CT) specimens. The cuts were
performed using a wire electric discharge machine and the induced
strains were measured using strain gages (EA-13-062AQ-350/LE).
The method consists in computing the original residual stress
distribution which matches best the strains that are actually mea-
sured. For that cause, the measured strains are converted in residual
stresses using an analytical model based on the stress intensity
factor solutions from linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM), see
Prime (1999). Note that similar tests were performed by chang-
ing the cutting method, using in particular a circular saw mounted
on a milling machine, and no significant effect was found on the
estimated residual stress distribution.
3.2.2. Numerical model
Simulations of FSW of the two thin plates are performed in
the cold weld and hot weld conditions. Temperatures and residual
stresses from the model are then compared with the experiment.
The heat flux is symmetric. The modeled plate is in these analyses
therefore only one half of the total welded plate and symmet-
ric boundary conditions are applied in the mechanical model. The
coordinate system is chosen as shown in Fig. 10. The top surface
is simulated to be in contact with steady air with a tempera-
ture of 15 ◦ C, seen via a convection heat transfer coefficient of
h = 10 W/m2 K. The bottom surface is in contact with a backing plate
also with a temperature of 15 ◦ C. Here the heat transfer coefficient
is set to h = 1000 W/m2 K as suggested by Khandkar et al. (2003). As
mentioned, symmetry conditions are applied on the surface of the
weld line, which means that uy = 0 for this surface. In order to sim-
ulate realistic predictions of the clamping boundaries, rollers are
applied under the entire bottom surface of the plate (uz = 0), and on
the edges, all degrees of freedom are constrained (ux = uy = uz = 0).
In Fig. 10 the applied boundary conditions and the dimensions of
the plate are shown.
To get realistic residual stresses, the “clamping” boundary con-
ditions are released in subsequent steps.
The plate is discretized by structured 8-node brick elements. In a
20 mm band near the welding line, the elements have a side length
of 1 mm. Outside this welding zone, the mesh is biased toward the
edge of the plate, see Fig. 10.
3.2.3. Results
The results in terms of temperatures from the heat transfer
analyses are now compared with the values measured during the
experiments. The temperature histories at the points closest to
the weld center (thermocouple 2), see Fig. 11, show relatively
good agreement between the numerical heat transfer analysis and
the experimentally measured values for both cold and hot weld-
ing conditions. Note that the temperature difference between the
advancing and retreating side cannot be captured by a symmetric
model which explains why two experimental curves are compared
to a single simulation result. The maximum temperatures further
away from the weld axis tend to be slightly over-predicted for the
cold weld, see Fig. 11c. This is expected, since the contact conditions
between workpiece and backing plate are identical everywhere,
which is not the case in the experiments, and this will introduce
some difference in measured and predicted values.
The residual stresses from the subsequent stress analysis are
now compared with measured residual stresses from the experi-
ments using the slitting method published by Deplus et al. (2011).
The longitudinal stresses are calculated as an average over the
thickness of the plate, in order to make it comparable with the
experimentally found stresses.
From comparison of the computed residual stresses with the
measured values from the experiment in cold welding conditions,
see Fig. 12a, it is observed that the residual stress curves from the FE
analyses with kinematic or isotropic hardening, or isotropic hard-
ening with the metallurgical softening model included give almost
similar results. Moreover, the results from the FE analyses are in rel-
atively good agreement with the measured residual stresses in the
welded specimen. The residual stress near the weld center is a bit
lower for kinematic hardening than for isotropic hardening with-
out softening. This is due to the shift of the yield surface, which
was also seen from the preliminary Satoh test. For both measure-
ments and simulations in cold welding condition, the well-known
M-shape is observed, which is characteristic of age hardenable alu-
minum alloys. Deplus et al. (2011) also observed this M-shape in
their work of describing residual stresses in aluminum alloy friction
stir welds as well as Price et al. (2007) in their paper about distor-
tion control in welding by mechanical tensioning and Altenkirch
et al. (2009) in their work on residual stress engineering in friction
stir welds by roller tensioning.
For the hot welding conditions, see Fig. 12b, the results from
the FE analyses with different hardening and softening behaviors
are much more diverging. The residual stresses for calculations
with kinematic and isotropic hardening without the softening
model have much higher longitudinal stresses near the weld cen-
ter compared to the calculation with isotropic hardening and the
metallurgical softening model included. The results for the hot
welding conditions with isotropic hardening and softening model
resemble much better the measured residual stresses compared
to the calculations without this metallurgical model. This stresses
the importance of including a metallurgical model to insure reli-
able predictions of the residual stresses. However the computed
M-shape is wider and has a lower quantity of longitudinal stresses
near the weld center compared to the measurements. It should be
 M.R. Sonne et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 213 (2013) 477–486 483

Table 3
Location of thermocouples for cold(C) and hot(H) welding conditions. A, advancing side; R, retreating side.

Thermocouple number Longitudinal distance from Transverse distance to Depth below the upper Side
start of welding [mm] the weld center [mm] surface [mm]

C+H C+H C H C H C+H

2 345 6 8.9 1 1.6 R

3 355 7 10 1 1.6 R
4 365 8 12 1 1.6 R
5 375 9 14 1 1.6 R
6 385 10 16 1 1.6 R
7 345 6 8.9 1 1.6 A
8 355 7 10 1 1.6 A
9 365 8 12 1 1.6 A
10 375 9 14 1 1.6 A
11 385 10 16 1 1.6 A

Fig. 10. Dimensions and BC’s of the FSW model plate, and the mesh schematically shown.

Fig. 11. Comparison of temperatures from measurements and FE heat transfer analyses for: (a) cold welding conditions at 6 mm from the weld centreline, (b) hot welding
conditions at 8.9 mm from the weld centreline. (c) Comparison of maximum temperatures. A = advancing side, R = retreating side.

noted that if a strain hardenable alloy was to be modeled, e.g. a 5xxx
series aluminum alloy, the residual stress distribution predicted
without softening would be most appropriate.
From the microstructural model, it was possible to back out the
hardness via equation (6) with HVmax = 161 HV1 and HVmin = 120
HV1, and compare it with measured values, see Fig. 13. The pre-
dicted hardness (following Grong’s model) does not increase in the
weld center because the model described in Section 2.3 does not
account for natural aging after welding. But as seen from Fig. 13 the
model allows to predict the decrease in hardness in the softening
zone, both for hot and cold welding conditions.
From the mechanical model the stress history in a certain point
can be shown. For both cold and hot welding conditions, the
stresses in longitudinal and transverse directions of the welding
path extracted for a point in the middle of the plate and on the
weld center line are plotted for the different hardening laws as a
function of the temperature, see Fig. 14. In these plots it is possi-
ble to follow how the stresses in that point develop as the moving
heat source passes by. It is seen that while heating up, stresses in
compression are build up, and these drop as the von Mises stresses
reaches the temperature dependent yield stress. Then during cool-
ing down, tensile stresses are built up and the plate ends up having

Fig. 12. Comparison of longitudinal, normal residual stresses from measurements using the slitting method in experiments with results from finite element stress analysis
for: (a) cold welding conditions, (b) hot welding conditions.
484 M.R. Sonne et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 213 (2013) 477–486
Fig. 13. Comparison of experimental and predicted Vickers hardness.
large tensile stresses before release in both cases. It is observed
that for the cold welding conditions (Fig. 14a) strains during cooling
down are purely elastic. For the hot welding conditions (Fig. 14b), it
is seen that with the softening model included, the tensile stresses
are cut off as the von Mises stress reaches the yield stress in ten-
sion. Another phenomenon observed is that for this welding case
the largest stresses in compression during heat up are found in the
transverse direction (S22). As the plates are rigidly clamed to the
backing plate, these large transverse stresses are build up during
welding. However the transverse stresses are reduced substantially
Fig. 14. Longitudinal (S11) and transverse (S22) stresses plotted as a function of the temperature in the center point at the weld center line of the welds for kinematic and
isotropic hardening, and isotropic hardening with the metallurgical softening model activated; (a) Cold welding conditions, (b) Hot welding conditions. Compare with the
corresponding Satoh-test plots in Fig. 7.
Fig. 15. (a) Temperature distribution and softening fraction Xd as a function of time. (b) Longitudinal and Mises stresses plotted as a function of time together with the yield
strength in the weld centreline.
as the clamps are released and the thin sheet is free to distort,
which is also seen from the results in Fig. 14. Especially for the
FSW simulation with hot welding conditions, this Satoh-plot way of
showing the stress history is in good agreement with the simple 1D
Satoh test performed in the previous application. It shows that the
difference in residual stresses by choosing kinematic or isotropic
hardening rule plays a minor role in the resulting residual stresses.
However, the microstructure model shows in hot welding condi-
tion to have a major impact on the resulting residual stresses, which
was also seen in the 1D Satoh test application. For cold welding con-
ditions, the Satoh-plot in Fig. 14a, does not show large differences in
residual stresses, which also correspond with the observed results
in Fig. 12a.
In continuation of the above-mentioned results, it is natural to
discuss why the metallurgical softening model only shows its effect
during simulation with hot welding conditions. To give a reasonable
explanation of this, the stress history in the time domain should be
investigated. Fig. 15 compares the cold and hot welding conditions
giving the temperature history, fraction of precipitates and com-
pares the Mises stress with the yield stress as a function of time.
Fig. 15 shows that as the FSW tool passes by, the yield strength is
decreasing as the temperature increases. Subsequently, after cool
down, the yield strength in both cold and hot welding conditions is
increased again, however to a lower level than the initial value due
to the effect of the precipitate dissolution on the material soften-
ing. In terms of fraction of precipitates, the cold welding conditions
show a partial precipitate dissolution after welding while the hot
welding conditions shows a complete precipitate dissolution after
welding. This is due to the observable difference in cooling rate
 M.R. Sonne et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 213 (2013) 477–486 485

between both welds, i.e. the cold weld cools down much faster than
the hot weld due to a lower traveling speed.
As a consequence, for the cold welding conditions, the Mises
stress does not reach the higher yield strength during cool down,
while the stresses in tension remain in the elastic region. For the hot
welding conditions, as the aluminum alloy has softened more due
Table 4
Thermal properties of aluminum alloy 2024T3 (European Deepweld Project, 2008).
Temperature [◦ C] Density [g/cm3 ]
to the larger precipitate dissolution, the Mises stress reaches the
yield strength and the material starts to yield during cool down, as
also seen from the Satoh-plot of the real FSW application in Fig. 15.
This shows that even though the results for the cold welding con-
ditions with or without the softening model included did show the
same results regarding residual stresses, taking the softening model
into account is still important if a realistic prediction of the final
yield stress is the goal.
4. Conclusion

22 2.77 The following conditions could be drawn from the work:

100 2.76
200 2.73
300 2.71 • Results from the heat transfer analysis showed reasonably good
400 2.69 agreement between simulated and measured temperatures dur-
500 2.67
ing FSW.
• The choice of hardening law was not as determining as com-
Temperature [◦ C] Specific heat [J/gK]
pared to including a softening model in the simulation of residual
46 0.90 stresses.
100 0.91
• Under cold welding conditions, the softening model decreased
200 0.95
300 1.02 the yield stress, but this did not affect the residual stresses since
400 1.10 the von Mises stress during cooling remained lower than the
current yield stress.
Temperature [◦ C] Thermal conductivity [W/mK] • During hot welding conditions, it was seen that the decrease of
55 126 yield stress caused by softening very much affected the residual
102 129 stresses near the weld center line. This is due to a lower yield
152 139
stress after welding associated to a larger precipitate dissolution.
202 153
• Even though the softening model did not have any effect on the
252 170
302 178 residual stresses under cold welding conditions, it is still impor-
353 177 tant to include this metallurgical model in the simulation, as
403 187 prediction of the yield stress is a major factor when determining
453 194
the load carrying capacity of a welded structure.

Table 5 Acknowledgements
Mechanical properties of aluminum alloy 2024T3 (ASM Handbook, 1993).

Young’s modulus E [Gpa] Poisson’s ratio v Temperature T [◦ C] Benjamin Ducoeur and Kevin Deplus are acknowledged for their
Elasic
contribution to the experimental work. A.S. is a scientific collabo-
72 0.33 25 rator of the FRS-FNRS Belgium.
71 0.33 100
63 0.33 200
53 0.33 300
Appendix A.
45 0.33 400
See Appendix Tables A.1 and A.2.
Yield strength Equivalent plastic Temperature T Softening
 yield [MPa] strain εp [m/m] [◦ C] fraction Xd
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