Analysis of material positioning towards microstructure of the friction stir processed AA1050/AA6082 dissimilar joint

Friction stir processing (FSP) is considered to be the newly developed technique which was derived from the welding technique called friction stir welding (FSW). This technique modifies the microstructure of the material through stirring. The initial focus of this technique was on processing single surface. The focus has now been extended to the joints. This paper reports on the influence of material positioning during the friction stir processing of the friction stir welded AA1050/AA6082 dissimilar joint. The grain size for the stir zone was found to be finer when AA6082 was positioned on the advancing side during both friction stir welding and processing (with different grain size range). The ultimate tensile strength (UTS) and yield strength (YS) were found to be higher when AA6082 was positioned on the advancing side than when AA1050 on the advancing side during FSW and FSP. It was further observed that the percentage elongation doubled that of the base materials for both FSW and FSP dissimilar joint when AA1050 was positioned on the advancing side.