The influence of coefficient of friction in thermal prediction of refill friction stir spot welding process of AA7075-T6

Numerical modelling of refill friction stir spot welding helps in the deep investigation of physics involved in the joining process. The current study investigates four variants of contact models and their influence on thermal prediction in the process. The contact models with constant shear and coulomb friction coefficients and temperature-dependent shear and coulomb friction coefficients were used in the numerical models to investigate the influence of friction coefficients in the prediction of thermal cycles in refill friction stir spot welding. The results from the numerical model are compared and validated with the experimental results from a previous study. The contact model with temperature-dependent coulomb friction coefficient was concluded to be more reliable when compared to the other three contact models. The temperature for this contact model at the centre of the weld is 505 & DEG;C, which differs from the temperature recorded in the experiment by 2 %. The peak temperatures of numerical models with constant coulomb and shear friction coefficients differ from the experimental temperature at the weld centre by 5.17 % and 16.8 % respectively. In this paper, a three dimensional numerical model to predict the thermal cycles during the refill friction stir spot welding is presented. The influence constant and temperature dependent friction coefficients in thermal prediction is highlighted in the study. The numerical model with temperature dependent coulomb friction coefficient predicts the temperatures accurately during the process.image