Evaluation of plastic zone development in WE43 magnesium alloy upon friction stir processing using finite element modeling

The evolution of the plastic zone in two different cases of WE43 magnesium alloy has been evaluated using finite element model (FEM) with a pressure load as the only loading condition. The FEM model for each of the two cases consists of WE43 material as follows: case 1: as-received (AR) condition and case 2: friction stir processed (FSP) condition. The simulations account for the stress behavior in the tear test specimen with and without the friction stir processing. A simple analytical model is developed to estimate the resulting stress gradient in each material which is considered as one of the main causes for fracture. The modeled stress in the specimens is presented and compared to experimental measurements generated with digital image correlation technology (DIC) for the two cases.