Correlation between welding and hardening parameters of friction stir welded joints of 2017 aluminum alloy

An experimental study was undertaken to express the hardening Swift law according to friction stir welding (FSW) aluminum alloy 2017. Tensile tests of welded joints were run in accordance with face centered composite design. Two types of identified models based on least square method and response surface method were used to assess the contribution of FSW independent factors on the hardening parameters. These models were introduced into finite-element code “Abaqus” to simulate tensile tests of welded joints. The relative average deviation criterion, between the experimental data and the numerical simulations of tension-elongation of tensile tests, shows good agreement between the experimental results and the predicted hardening models. These results can be used to perform multi-criteria optimization for carrying out specific welds or conducting numerical simulation of plastic deformation of forming process of FSW parts such as hydroforming, bending and forging.