Materials Science and Engineering A341 (2003) 307
/310

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Letter

Friction stir processing: a novel technique for fabrication of surface

composite
R.S. Mishra *, Z.Y. Ma, I. Charit
Department of Metallurgical Engineering, University of Missouri, B37 McNutt Hall, 1870 Miner Circle, Rolla, MO 65409 0340, USA

Received 10 January 2002; received in revised form 21 March 2002

Abstract

A novel surface modifying technique, friction stir processing (FSP), has been developed for fabrication of surface composite. Al
/
SiC surface composites with different volume fractions of particles were successfully fabricated. The thickness of the surface
composite layer ranged from 50 to 200 mm. The SiC particles were uniformly distributed in the aluminum matrix. The surface
composites have excellent bonding with the aluminum alloy substrate. The microhardness of the surface composite reinforced with
27vol.%SiC of 0.7 mm average particle size was
/173 HV, almost double of the 5083Al alloy substrate (85 HV). The solid-state
processing and very fine microstructure that results are also desirable for high performance surface composites.
# 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Surface composite; Friction stir processing; Al
/SiC

1. Introduction been developed to fabricate surface metal-matrix com-

posites. Among these techniques, laser melt treatment
Compared with unreinforced metals, metal-matrix (also called laser processing or laser surface engineering
composites reinforced with ceramic phases exhibit high (LSE)) is widely used for surface modification. During
strength, high elastic modulus, and improved resistance this process, laser melts the surface of substrate along
to wear, creep and fatigue, which make them promising with the deposited material, which is usually, either
structural materials for aerospace and automobile carbide powder (SiC, TiC, or WC), or combination of
industries. However, these composites also suffer from carbide powders and a binding material (Co, Al, or Ni).
a great loss in ductility and toughness due to incorpora- The coating material is either predeposited (or pre-
tion of non-deformable ceramic reinforcements, which placed) or injected through a specific nozzle with
limits their wide applications to a certain extent. For simultaneous laser beam radiation. In injection techni-
many applications, the useful life of components often que, the powder material to be deposited is carried
depends on their surface properties such as wear- through a nozzle by a carrier inert gas to the surface to
resistance. In these situations, it is desirable that only be treated, where it is incorporated into the laser surface
melted pool.
the surface layer of components is reinforced by ceramic
Pantelis et al. [2] and Hu et al. [3,4] created surface
phases while the bulk of components retain the original
Al
/SiC composites by means of laser processing tech-
composition and structure with higher toughness.
niques. Furthermore, Hu et al. [5] showed that contin-
In recent years, several surface modification techni-
uous surface Al
/SiC composite can be formed by
ques, such as high-energy laser melt treatment [1
/8],
overlapping laser tracks on aluminum alloy. It is
high-energy electron beam irradiation [9,10], plasma
reported that the thickness of surface composite layer
spraying [11], cast sinter [12,13], and casting [14], have was limited to 30
/50 mm when SiC particles were
preplaced on the substrate [3] whereas the thickness of
* Corresponding author. Tel.: /1-573-341-6361; fax: /1-573-341-
up to
/450 mm was obtained for the particle injection
6934 technique [2]. The SiC particles were uniformly distrib-
E-mail address: [email protected] (R.S. Mishra). uted in the surface layer. The surface composite
0921-5093/02/$ - see front matter # 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 9 2 1 - 5 0 9 3 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 1 9 9 - 5
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exhibited high microhardness and excellent wear resis- investigate the possibility of incorporating ceramic
tance compared with untreated sample. Pantelis et al. [2] particle into surface layer of aluminum alloy to form
reported that some SiC particles reacted partially with surface composite by means of FSP technique.
the aluminum matrix whereas Hu et al. [3
/6] revealed
that the SiC particles partially dissolved in the liquid
and reprecipitated during solidification and a new 2. Experimental
aluminum silicon carbide was formed during laser
processing. Commercial available SiC powder (99.5% purity and
It should be pointed out that the existing processing 0.7 mm average particle size) and 5083Al alloy (Al
/Mg
/
techniques for forming surface composites are based on Mn) rolled plate were used in this study. The surface of
liquid phase processing at high temperatures. In this 5083 alloy plates was cleaned before processing. SiC
case, it is hard to avoid the interfacial reaction between powder was added into a small amount of methanol and
reinforcement and metal-matrix and the formation of mixed, and then applied to surface of the plates to form a
some detrimental phases. Furthermore, critical control thin SiC particle layer. The process is similar to tape
of processing parameters is necessary to obtain ideal casting, except that no binder was added to the mixture.
solidified microstructure in surface layer. Obviously, if The aluminum plates with preplaced SiC particle layer
processing of surface composite is carried out at were subjected to FSP after drying in air. A tacking tool
temperatures below melting point of substrate, the with a pin height of 1.0 mm was used. A constant tool-
problems mentioned above can be avoided. In this rotating rate of 300 rpm was adopted and traverse rate
study, a new processing technique, Friction Stir Proces- and depth of shoulder was varied. The tool spindle angle
sing (FSP) was attempted to incorporate ceramic (angle between spindle and workpiece normal) of 2.58
particles into surface layer of aluminum alloy to form was used, which helps in forging action at the trailing
surface composite. FSP has been recently developed for edge of the shoulder. The target depth is defined as the
microstructural modification by Mishra et al. [15,16] depth to which the pin will insert into the workpiece. The
based on the basic principles of friction stir welding target depth was controlled to vary the position of
(FSW). FSW is a relatively new solid state joining shoulder with respect to the top surface of the workpiece.
process developed initially for aluminum alloys by The Transverse sections of as-processed aluminum plates
Welding Institute (TWI) of UK [17]. It is considered as were mounted, and then mechanically polished and
the most significant development in metal joining in a examined using an optical microscope. The volume
decade, and has been successfully used to produce joints fraction of SiC particle in surface layer was estimated
in aluminum, titanium and other alloys. using Scion Image software. The microhardness values
The basic concept of FSP is remarkably simple. A of surface composite layer and aluminum alloy substrate
rotating tool with pin and shoulder is inserted in a single were measured using a load of 400 g.
piece of material for microstructural modification and
traversed along the desired line to cover the region of
interest (Fig. 1). Friction between the tool and work- 3. Results and discussion
pieces results in localized heating that softens and
plasticizes the workpiece. A volume of processed Optical microscopic examinations revealed that the
material is produced by movement of materials from processing parameters exhibit significant effects on
the front of the pin to the back of the pin. During this formation of surface composite layer. In this study the
process, the material undergoes intense plastic deforma- effect of shoulder position and traverse speed were
tion and this results in significant grain refinement evaluated. The basic observations are summarized in
[15,16]. One of the potential applications of FSP is to Table 1. Table 1 shows that when the target depth is too
generate microstructure amenable to high strain rate large (2.28 mm), the shoulder of tool pushed away all
superplasticity [15,16]. The aim of the present study is to the preplaced SiC particles, and, basically no surface
composite formed. Too small target depth (1.78 mm)
was also ineffective to mix SiC particles into aluminum
alloy. A target depth of 2.03 mm resulted in incorpora-
tion of SiC particles into aluminum matrix. However,
the bonding of surface composite layer and substrate
plate was influenced by the traverse speed. At higher
traverse speed (101.6 mm min 1), the surface composite
layer was usually separated from the aluminum alloy
substrate and the bonding was poor as shown in Fig. 2.
Fig. 3a shows optical micrograph of surface compo-
Fig. 1. A schematic of the FSP. site. It is evident that SiC particles were uniformly
 R.S. Mishra et al. / Materials Science and Engineering A341 (2003) 307
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Table 1
Effect of processing parameters on formation of surface composite

Target depth Tool traverse rate (mm min 1)

(mm)
25.4 101.6

1.78 No particles was incorporated into aluminum
/

2.03 Surface composite was formed with well-distributed particles and very good Surface composite has poor bonding with
bonding with metal substrate metal substrate
2.28 No particles was incorporated into aluminum
/

Fig. 4a shows that the distribution of SiC particles in

aluminum matrix was still reasonably uniform in high-
particle-content surface composite. The volume fraction
of SiC particles in Fig. 4a was estimated to be
/27%. Fig.
4b shows that the bonding between surface composite
layer and aluminum alloy substrate was very good.
Table 2 summarizes the microhardness of surface
composites with different volume fraction of SiC
particles and aluminum substrate. Table 2 reveals that
the incorporation of
/27vol.%SiC particles into surface
layer of aluminum alloy nearly doubles its hardness.
The microstructural features (Figs. 3 and 4) and the
microhardness values (Table 2) clearly indicate that FSP
is very effective technique to fabricate surface metal-
Fig. 2. Optical micrograph showing poor bonding between surface matrix composite with well-distributed particles and
composite and aluminum alloy substrate at higher traverse speed very good bonding with metal substrate. The advantages
(101.6 mm min1). of the FSP are evident compared with laser processing,
high-energy electron beam irradiation, and casting
distributed in aluminum matrix and no discernible sinter. Firstly, the FSP is carried out in solid state, so,
porosities and defects were detected. The thickness of interfacial reaction and formation of detrimental phases
the surface composite layer ranges from 50 to 200 mm. are avoided. Therefore, it is suitable for processing
The volume fraction of SiC particles was estimated to be various kinds of aluminum alloys and other metals.

/13% by Scion Image software. Fig. 3b shows optical Secondly, the FSP results in significant grain refinement
micrograph of interface zone between surface composite in surface layer. The wrought microstructure is desirable
layer and aluminum alloy substrate. The surface com- for enhanced fracture properties as compared with the
posite layer appears to be very well bonded to the solidified microstructure that results from laser proces-
aluminum alloy substrate, and no defects were visible. sing or high-energy electron beam irradiation. Thirdly,
With same processing parameters as in Fig. 3 and FSP operation is relatively simple and easily controlled
increasing the amount of preplaced SiC particles, surface because no complicated high-energy laser device or
composite with higher particle content was generated. high-voltage electron accelerator is needed.

Fig. 3. Optical micrograph showing (a) uniform distribution of SiC particles (
/13 vol.%) in aluminum alloy matrix, and (b) perfect bonding
between surface composite and aluminum alloy substrate.
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Fig. 4. Optical micrograph showing (a) uniform distribution of SiC particles (
/27 vol.%) in aluminum alloy matrix, and (b) perfect bonding
between surface composite and aluminum alloy substrate.

Table 2 composite was doubled with
/27 vol.% of SiC parti-

Microhardness (HV) of surface composites and aluminum substrate cles.
Location Vol.% of SiC particles Hardness (HV)

Base plate 0 85 Acknowledgements

Surface composite 1392 123
2793 173
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of
the National Science Foundation through grant DMR-
0076433 and the Missouri Research Board for the
This process can be scaled to cover a larger area by
acquisition of friction stir welding and processing
overlapping passes. The concept of overlapping passes
machine.
for microstructural modification was demonstrated by
Mishra and Mahoney [16] for superplasticity. For
surface composites, the overlapping passes would re-
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