Aluminum friction stir welds: Review of fatigue parameter data and probabilistic fracture mechanics analysis

Recent papers on the fatigue design of aluminum welds have highlighted a lack of guidance on the assessment of structures containing joints made by friction stir welding (FSW). With this mind, the current paper presents a review of existing fatigue life data for FSW joints and reported measurements of key geometric and material parameters. A probabilistic fracture mechanics analysis of FSW joints is then presented and the results used to identify parameters for which additional data collection would be beneficial for improving our understanding of the fatigue behavior of FSW joints and how this behavior is affected by weld quality.