Comprehensive thermo-mechanical simulation of friction surfacing of aluminum alloys using smoothed particle hydrodynamics method

Using the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) model, this article has studied the thermomechanical and microstructural aspects of AA6061 aluminum coating applied by friction surfacing. The predicted results were compared and validated with the experimental results. A comparison was also performed between the results predicted by the SPH and Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) models. The results showed that using the SPH model, the un-bonding zone and coating profile were simulated with high accuracy without any need to determine the plastic strain criterion required for the ALE model. The maximum percentage errors in estimating the effective thickness and width of the coating by the SPH model were 6% and 8%, respectively. According to the predicted and experimental results, the minimum temperature at the interface between the consumable rod and substrate required to create an effective coating was higher than 0.54 T-m of the AA6061 consumable rod. Compared to the SPH model, the ALE model was less accurate in predicting the microstructure and estimating the thermal cycle of the coating, especially in the heating/cooling stage and at the maximum temperature of the thermal cycle.