Mechanical Properties of Friction Stir Processed, Friction Stir Welded, and Gas Metal Arc Welded AA5083 Aluminum Plate

Friction Stir Processing (FSP) can be used to locally modify material properties of aluminum such as ductility.(1,2) Ductility is increased due to FSP creating a fine grain microstructure and local annealing. This allows FSP to locally improve the formability of aluminum, which normally is limited. Typically, for aluminum fabrications, this results in limited use of formed components. Furthermore, this lack of formability results in complex shaped aluminum fabrications to be composed primarily of flat components or minimally formed components. This results in the excessive need for joining operations.(3) Alternatively, FSP can be used to enable forming of parts, reducing both the number of detail parts and subsequent joining. One such example is in the fabrication of angles or C-channels fabricated from aluminum plate. This paper will describe a small subset of results of a qualification program for the use of FSP on AA5083-H116 to form angles or C-channels. Mechanical property test results on friction stir processed, friction stir welded, gas metal arc welded, and base material in both formed and unformed conditions will be presented.