Microstructure Characterisation of Magnetic Pulse Welded AA6061-T6 by Electron Backscattered Diffraction
Microstructure Characterisation of Magnetic Pulse Welded AA6061-T6 by Electron Backscattered Diffraction
Microstructure Characterisation of Magnetic Pulse Welded AA6061-T6 by Electron Backscattered Diffraction
Introduction
Magnetic pulse welding (MPW) is a solid state impact
welding technology. The process uses electromagnetic
force to accelerate one metal piece (flyer plate) onto
another stationary metal piece. The velocities attained
during this process range from 200 to 500 m s21.13
The joining occurs on impact within microsecond
magnitude.3 Even in such a short time period, the
extent of heating is minimal in the joints. Therefore,
metallurgically, there are no significant heat affected
zones (HAZ) in MPW joints.4 It is generally agreed that
the joining mechanism is similar to explosive joining
where the surface oxide of the faying interfaces is
disrupted due to the jet action and metallurgical
bonding is achieved between clean surfaces. However,
the details of shock wave interaction and the resulting
high strain rate deformation of the underlying microstructure are not clearly understood. Therefore, a
systematic microstructure characterisation effort has
been initiated. The overall study involves understanding
crystallographic features near the interface, chemical
mixing near the interface and modelling of the interfacial
phenomenon using computational models. This communication presents selective results from microstructure characterisation during MPW under two processing
conditions.
The focus in this study is to evaluate the deformation
conditions of grains near the interface. Literature on
MPW suggests the possibility of adiabatic heating.3,5,6
Therefore, it is speculated that along the interface, this
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(a)
(b)
a stereographic triangle; b IPF image for as received
AA6061-T6 (140 mm6140 mm)
1 Images (EBSD) indicate grain orientation distribution of
as received AA6061-T6: crystallorgraphic directions are
parallel to plane normal
(a)
(b)
a linear seam welding for plate by linear actuator; b tubular welding for tube and rod by circular actuator
2 Cross-section sketch of MPW experimental setup
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(b)
4 a optical macrograph of spalled region in AA6061-T6 rod away from welded region and b schematic illustration of physical processes that may lead to spalling
Conclusions
Magnetic pulse welding can be used for different
geometry workpieces. Both linear welding and tubular
welding on AA6061-T6 were studied. Microstructure
characterisation of MPW on AA6061-T6 by EBSD
indicates almost one order of magnitude grain refinement in the welded interface comparing with base
metals. The data also show large crystallographic
misorientations between these grains. These experimental results confirm the hypothesis of localised high strain
rate deformation near the faying interfaces during high
velocity impact. The results also show that the interface
is formed mainly by true solid state bonding.
Significant spalling was observed away from the
welded region after the tubular MPW process.
Electron backscattered diffraction results from the
spalled region indicate the strain gradient and extensive
plastic deformation. The results qualitatively support
the hypothesis of localised deformation in the bulk
matrix away from the impacting surface due to the
progression of alternating compression and tension
001
101
5 Electron backscattered diffraction results from spalled region: colour code corresponds to spatial orientation of grains
with reference to stereographic triangle; large dark regions are voids and black speckles are regions where good diffraction could not be obtained
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank Edison Welding Institute and the
contribution of the State of Ohio, Department of
Development and Thomas Edison Program, which
provided funding in support of Edison Technology
and Industry Center Services. Thanks to American
Welding Society for supporting of this work in the
form of fellowship to Ms Y. Zhang. Research at the
Oak Ridge National Laboratory SHaRE User
Facility was sponsored by the Scientific User Facilities
Division, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, US
Department of Energy. The authors also thank the
valuable discussion and experiment support from T.
Geer, M. K. Miller and K. Russell at the Oak Ridge
National Laboratory.
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