A new approach to modelling friction stir welding using the CEL method

Although friction stir welding (FSW) has made its way to industrial application particularly in the last years, the FSW process, its influences and their strong interactions among themselves are still not thoroughly understood. This lack of understanding mainly arises from the adverse observability of the actual process with phenomena like material flow and deposition, large material deformations and thermomechanical interactions determining the mechanical properties of the weld. To close this gap an appropriate numerical model validated by experiments may be helpful. But because of the issues mentioned above most numerical techniques are not capable of modelling the FSW process. Therefore in this study a Coupled Eulerian-Lagrangian (CEL) approach is used for modelling the whole FSW process. A coupled thermomechanical 3D FE model is developed with the CEL formulation given in the FE code ABAQUS® V6.12. Results for temperature fields, weld formation and the possibility of void formation are shown and validated.