Characterization of friction stir consolidated recycled billet by uniaxial compression tests with miniaturized cylindrical specimen

Friction stir consolidation (FSC) is a solid-state recycling method that directly converts machining scraps into semifinished billets. This process has been proven to be a more energy efficient and environmentally friendly technique compared to remelting based conventional recycling methods. During FSC, machining chips are transformed into a solid billet by the stirring action and friction heat of the rotating tool. Due to process mechanics, especially temperature gradient and strain rate, billets have shown different hardness values and grain size distribution across their sections. Therefore, in this research, miniaturized upsetting samples are extracted from the FSC billet. The purpose of minimizing the sample size is to get the local properties of a particular position. The intensive characterization was performed with future goals to find a more accurate numerical modelling and ultimately assign FSC billet to a potential industrial application

Joining by forming technologies: current solutions and future trends

The progressively more demanding needs of emissions and costs reduction in the transportation industry are pushing engineers towards the use of increasingly lightweight structures. This goal can be achieved only if dissimilar and/or new materials, including polymers and composites, are joined together to create complex structures. Conventional fusion welding processes have often been proven inadequate to this task because of the high heat input reducing the joint mechanical properties or even making the joining process impossible. Joining by forming technologies take advantage on the plastic deformation to create sound joints out of even very dissimilar materials. Over the last 25 years, several new processes, with increasing potential in effectively joining virtually every structural material, have been invented and developed. In the paper, a comprehensive overview of the most utilized joining by forming processes is given. For each process, an analysis of the current research trends and hot topics is provided, highlighting strengths and weaknesses for industrial applications

Numerical modeling of the thermal contact in metal forming processes

Heat flow across the interface of solid bodies in contact is an important aspect in several engineering applications. This work presents a finite element model for the analysis of thermal contact, which takes into account the effect of contact pressure and gap dimension in the heat flow across the interface between two bodies. Additionally, the frictional heat generation is also addressed, which is dictated by the contact forces predicted by the mechanical problem. The frictional contact problem and thermal problem are formulated in the frame of the finite element method. A new law is proposed to define the interfacial heat transfer coefficient (IHTC) as a function of the contact pressure and gap distance, enabling a smooth transition between two contact status (gap and contact). The staggered scheme used as coupling strategy to solve the thermomechanical problem is briefly presented. Four numerical examples are presented to validate the finite element model and highlight the importance of the proposed law on the predicted temperature.The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the project PTDC/EMS-TEC/1805/2012 and by FEDER funds through the program COMPETE Programa Operacional Factores de Competitividade, under the project CENTRO-07-0224- FEDER-002001 (MT4MOBI). The second author is also grateful to the FCT for the postdoctoral grant SFRH/BPD/101334/2014. The authors would like to thank Prof. A. Andrade-Campos for helpful contributions on the development of the finite element code presented in this work.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Modeling of the plastic characteristics of AA6082 for the friction stir welding process

Focus of this paper is to model the plastic forming behavior of AA6082, in order to develop the numerical FE analysis of the friction stir welding processes and the simulation of subsequent forming processes. During the friction stir welding process, the temperatures reached can range up to 500 \ub0C and have a fundamental role for the correct performance of the process, so the material data has to show a temperature dependency. Because of the tool rotation a strain rate sensitivity of the material has to be respected as well. In this context, the general material characteristics of AA6082 were first identified for different stress states. For the uniaxial state the standard PuD-Al used in the automotive industry was applied, for the shear state the ASTM B831- 05 was used and for biaxial states the ISO 16842 was exploited. To characterize the plastic flow behavior of the AA6082 at elevated temperatures, tensile tests were performed according to DIN EN ISO 6892-2 from 25 \ub0C to 500 \ub0C with a strain rate from 0.1 s-1 up to 6.5 s-1