Evolution of Precipitates in A Mechanical Vibration-Assisted Metal Inert Gas Welded Joint of 6082-T6 Aluminum Alloy Made With An ER5356 Filler Wire
Evolution of Precipitates in A Mechanical Vibration-Assisted Metal Inert Gas Welded Joint of 6082-T6 Aluminum Alloy Made With An ER5356 Filler Wire
Evolution of Precipitates in A Mechanical Vibration-Assisted Metal Inert Gas Welded Joint of 6082-T6 Aluminum Alloy Made With An ER5356 Filler Wire
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11665-024-09960-z 1059-9495/$19.00
Advanced welding techniques of aluminum alloy are of great practical interest for applications in the
electric vehicle industry. However, heat-affected zone (HAZ) softening is one of the most daunting technical
challenges facing the welding of aluminum alloy. In this work, a mechanical vibration-assisted MIG welding
process with a ER5356 filler wire was used to strength the welded joint of 6082-T6 aluminum alloy. During
welding, a continuous, hammering-like force was applied to the workbench by a vibrator and transferred to
the weldment, causing mechanical vibration of the weldment in a direction perpendicular to the aluminum
plate. The microstructures of the welded joints were characterized by optical microscopy (OM), scanning
electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), energy-dispersive spectroscopy
(EDS), and electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD). To evaluate the mechanical properties of the welded
joints, tensile test and Vickers microhardness test were performed. The joint strength was significantly
enhanced by the mechanical vibration-assisted MIG welding process. The a (AlFeMnSi) precipitate formed
during welding leads to precipitation hardening in the heat-affected zone (HAZ) and therefore strengthens
the HAZ. Degassing of the weld pool and grain refinement in the weld, which also contributed to the
strength of the welded joint, can be achieved by means of mechanical vibration to stir the weld pool.
Fig. 2 Morphologies of the welded joints obtained at vibrational frequencies of (a) 0 Hz, (b) 60 Hz, (c) 100 Hz, and (d) 140 Hz
Fig. 4 EBSD inverse pole figure maps taken from (a) through (d) the fusion zone and (e) through (h) the weld center
joint when using a conventional MIG welding process which markedly increased the dislocation density and thus
(Fig. 6a), but two precipitates, b particles and a (AlFeMnSi) promoted the nucleation of a precipitates (Ref 26-28), thereby
particles, were found in the HAZ of the joint obtained by partially counteracting HAZ softening and therefore enhancing
mechanical vibration-assisted MIG welding (Fig. 6b through the strength of the joint (Ref 29, 30). It is also worth noting that
d). On the other hand, a precipitate-free zone (PFZ) formed in the number of precipitates increased as the vibrational fre-
the weld of the joint obtained by conventional MIG welding quency increased. The reason can be ascribed to the greater
(Fig. 6e), whereas enormous numbers of precipitates, GP zones, microstrain caused by the higher vibrational frequency.
were found in the weld of the joint obtained by mechanical
vibration-assisted MIG welding (Figs. 6f through h). In 3.2 Mechanical Behavior of the Joint
comparison to the base metal, the HAZ exhibits dissolution
Figure 7 shows the microhardness profiles of welded joints
of the b¢¢ precipitates, which may cause HAZ softening (Ref
obtained at different vibrational frequencies. As indicated in
23-25). However, mechanical vibration caused microstrain,
Fig. 6 TEM bright-field images taken from (a) through (d) the HAZ and (e) through (h) the weld
Fig. 7, the microhardness of the joint obtained by mechanical The microhardness (H) as a function of inverse of the square
vibration-assisted MIG welding is much greater than that of the root of the grain diameter (d1/2) is plotted in Fig. 8. When the
joint obtained by conventional MIG welding, showing that the H and d-1/2 values are fitted to a straight line equation, the slope
mechanical vibration-assisted MIG welding can provide effec- (Kv) as 9.15 and the intercept (HV) as 27.06 can be obtained.
tive strengthening in welded joints, especially in the HAZ. The The correlation coefficient of the linear fit is 0.99659,
a precipitated by mechanical vibration-assisted MIG welding demonstrating that the fit is accurate. Thus, in this case, the
leads to precipitation hardening and hence decreases HAZ Hall–Petch equation is
softening.
The Hall–Petch equation (Eq 1) was used to quantitatively H ¼ 27:06 þ 9:15d 1=2 ðEq 2Þ
analyze the relationship between the microhardness of joint and The results are in good agreement with Ref 32.
its grain size (Ref 31). Figure 9 shows the results of the tensile tests. The fracture
H ¼ H V þ k V d 1=2 ðEq 1Þ positions of 0, 60, and 100 Hz welded joints are all in the heat-
affected zone, indicating that the heat-affected zone is the
where d is the average diameter of the grains, and HV and KV weakest area of the aluminum alloy welded joint. When the
are constants for the metal. vibration frequency is 140 Hz, the reinforcement of the weld
back is too large to produce stress concentration, and the joint strength of joint compared to the joint obtained by conventional
breaks here. The welded joint obtained by mechanical vibra- MIG welding. The experimental results demonstrated that
tion-assisted MIG welding exhibited the maximum tensile mechanical vibration-assisted MIG welding is an effective
strength of 246 MPa, achieving a 12% increase in tensile
Fig. 10 Fracture morphologies of welded joints obtained at vibrational frequencies of (a) 0 Hz, (b) 60 Hz, (c) 100 Hz, and (d) 140 Hz