Friction Stir Welding of Duplex Stainless Steels

Duplex stainless steels are successful in a variety of applications such as the food industry, petrochemical and plants for desalination of seawater, where high corrosion resistance and high mechanical strength are required. However, the beneficial microstructure may be change during fusion welding steps and it can compromise the performance of these materials. Friction stir welding is a solid state process avoiding typical problems concerning solidification such as solidification cracks, liquation and segregation of alloying elements. For superduplex stainless steels can avoid unbalanced proportions of ferrite and austenite, formation of secondary deleterious phases and grain growth of ferrite in the heat affected zone. Consolidated friction stir welded joints with full penetration of 6 mm thick were obtained for UNS S32101 and S32205 duplex and S32750 and S32760 superduplex stainless steels. The friction stir welds were submitted to tensile tests indicating an improvement of strength in welded joints showing increased of yield and tensile strength for all studied cases. Regarding the microstructural characterization, an outstanding gran refinement was observed in the welded joint achieving grain sizes as small as 1 mu m. This refinement was associated with the combination of microstructural restoration mechanisms in the dual phase microstructure promoted by severe deformation associated with a high temperature during the welding process.