3D Finite Element Analysis of the Effect of Process Parameters on Linear Friction Welding of Mild Steel

In this work, a 3D numerical model was developed to investigate the complicated thermo-mechanically coupled process of linear friction welding (LFW). The explicit-implicit alternate method was adopted for the first time to simulate LFW mild steel based on the ABAQUS software. To cope with the excessive element distortion, remeshing was conducted at certain calculation time with the help of the HYPERWORKS software. Results show that the interface temperature is quickly increased to near 900 °C within 1 s. With increasing the welding time, the interface temperature reaches a quasi-steady state of about 950 °C and the axial shortening rate keeps almost constant. A final unilateral axial shortening of 2.73 mm was obtained under the experiment condition, which corresponds well to the experiment. Moreover, the effects of processing parameters (oscillation frequency, oscillation amplitude, and friction pressure) on the joint temperature evolution and axial shortening were systematically examined and discussed. These three parameters could be integrated into one factor, i.e., heat input to the interface.